


hearts left bleeding

by coalitiongirl



Series: Swan Hood and the Evil Queen [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-23
Updated: 2015-02-08
Packaged: 2018-01-16 19:01:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 107,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1358440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coalitiongirl/pseuds/coalitiongirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During an ambush gone wrong for outlaw Emma Swan, she meets a young Regina, on her way to an arranged marriage to the king. A friendship blossoms between them even as Regina begins to fall to dark magic and both are forced to make choices about who they're going to be- to each other and to themselves- and where they can possibly go from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
> [](http://imgur.com/ebMpiox)  
>  story cover by the phenomenally talented [curiouslycurious](http://curiouslycurious-me.tumblr.com/post/117272663842/inspired-by-coalitiongirls-amazing-swan-hood-and).
> 
> This will eventually be a 3b rewrite, but first we're going to move through Regina's history as seen on the show- and Emma's corresponding past- right up until the curse. This is tightly Emma's POV so I'll make a note at the beginning of the chapter if there is a relevant episode. This one would take place between The Stable Boy and We Are Both.
> 
> I wanted to keep Emma and Regina true to character, which means as much of their canon storylines are incorporated here as was possible. I've obviously had to change Emma's parentage (as little as I could, but more on that later) and there's going to be some tweaking of the curse when it comes, but assume that most of what you still know about both of them is true unless told otherwise.

**PART I**

 

_Sixty feet. Fifty. Forty-five._

She creeps forward, tracking her progress by the bushes that decorate the land around the castle, the guards oblivious to her presence as she moves through them. Ahead along the road, James is walking with King George, arm-in-arm with a smug-eyed girl Emma’s never seen with him before. He laughs, his father scowls, and Emma rolls her eyes, unseen. _Typical_. James has been insufferable since he hit puberty, and she’s had the misfortune to witness it throughout.

 

Not that he knows that.

 

She tucks her chin in beneath her hood, pulls her fingers back, and lets fly, her arrow shooting straight and true. It whooshes past James and she smirks when he jumps to the side, his sword drawn and eyes wide, and King George has barely enough time to growl out, “It’s him! The Swan!” before Emma’s flying across the clearing, forty feet-thirty-twenty-ten, her eyes on her true target.

 

She leaps up onto James’s prize steed- his pride and joy, from what she’s heard him drunkenly bellowing with his men in the taverns- her grey-white cloak whipping around her as she pats him on the head once, dodging his sword, and squeezes her boots together against the stallion's sides. “Ha!” she shouts in her deepest voice, and then they’re running together, her new horse galloping away as she turns back to watch James and George’s outrage and the knights only now rushing for their own horses.

 

* * *

 

She sells the horse for a hefty sum to a stable near the border of King Leopold’s kingdom. James will search for his horse, she’s sure, but he’s fickle enough to rage and vent and then find new interest. _Same for the girl he’d been with_ , she thinks, and doesn’t feel very bad about it. He won’t look this far, and if he tries to trace the profits, he won’t find them.

 

She makes her way to the closest marketplace and ducks into a grubby little room, nodding to the hulking figure who’s sitting at the table inside, contemplating a chessboard. “Good game?”

 

“Will’s knight has been a menace,” he grunts, and the man sitting opposite him quirks an eyebrow and takes a pawn. “Might be time to…” A meaty finger moves forward to push the black queen from its starting place, two spaces from the knight. “Good game?” he echoes.

 

She slips out of her cloak, tucking it into her carrying bag. “King George’s son lost his favorite toy.”

 

Will laughs. “It wouldn’t be a good day if Swan weren’t a thorn in the king’s side.” He rests a finger against the point of the knight’s horse-head, rubbing it absently. “There are reports of a carriage bearing King Leopold’s coat of arms near the far end of the kingdom.”

 

Emma perks up midway through changing. “Just one carriage?”

 

“Moving slowly. Laden with bags.”

 

She slips into the green dress that had been hanging in the room, closing the catches in the front and twisting it around her before she slides her arms inside. “What kind of idiot travels on the king’s road without any guards these days? Don’t tell me our reputation only goes so far.” Her hair falls around her face, messy and tangled, and she brushes it out with her fingers. “Fine. You two set up an ambush around here. Leave me Beetle, and I’ll catch up to you once I’ve taken care of this.”

 

She leaves the room without looking back, twisting her fingers around her bag of earnings from James’s horse.

 

* * *

 

She crosses the threshold into the marketplace and _changes_ , as simply and fluidly as if she’d been doing it her whole life. Her shoulders straighten, her posture improves, and the hard lines of her face melt away as well as they ever will. She’s been transformed from the toughened outlaw she’s been for the past three years, the one who’s gained infamy in the kingdoms since she’d turned seventeen and put on that grey hood for the first time; and now she’s just another villager, well off enough to be mannered and clean, but not wearing anything wealthy enough to be mistaken for a noble.

 

Little John likes it when they can distribute the money on their own, with cries of, “From Swan Hood and the king!” as they ride through the streets and toss offerings to the poor who walk past. The Friar has his own agenda, and thinks that all their winnings should go to whatever religious structure is at the center of each town and their keepers should find use for them. Emma likes this- walking through the streets, an innocent face with none of the renown of the Merry Men- unbothered and unworried as she drops coins into the coffers of the poor.

 

She ignores their thanks and forces herself not to look back and let them focus on her face, instead dwelling on the outrage on James’s face as he’d lost just one miniscule part of his ever-privileged life. Well. She’s never denied that she can hold a grudge, and this one is fourteen years long and has had plenty of mileage since then. At least she’s using it for good cause.

 

Her purse of coins is nearly empty, the line of beggars all but finished, and she pauses by the last of the row and takes a step back when she sees the girl’s face. She can’t be more than ten, blonde hair filthy and unwashed and her face grimy and bruised, but her eyes are strong, hope still making them shine where others have been dulled. Emma breathes, oxygen catching on something sharp and painful in her throat, and the girl stares, and Emma breathes again and nearly chokes on it and drops her purse in front of the girl instead of fishing out the coins.

 

She stares straight ahead and walks on until she’s back at the room her men keep in this marketplace, finding her stride and pushing the child from her mind as she prepares to rob a carriage full of fools.

 

* * *

 

The deer that lies across the road is a fake, one of Emma’s most valuable ideas since she’d become the icon of the Merry Men and then, in turn, their leader. They’d removed the skin and stuffed it with straw, and it’s only noticeable that it’s a fake once the driver gets down and inspects it. Which is, of course, Little John’s cue and much too late for the driver.

 

There’s a squabble on the road, a brief back-and-forth where weapons are brandished and the driver is swinging his sword clumsily and this is _easy_ , too easy, and Emma’s beginning to think that this whole encounter is an ambush for the Merry Men, not the carriage.

 

She steps forward, about to call for a retreat, when the carriage door opens and a woman gracefully descends to the road. Her expression is amused and she seems unworried by the men fighting it out around her, and Emma immediately senses that she’s going to be more trouble than she’s worth.

 

She could run now, but there’s something in that haughtiness on the woman’s face that’s prickling at the defiant child that’s still too close to the surface within her, and she’s suddenly driven by the desire to take this carriage, trap be damned. Which is maybe reckless and stupid and she thinks she can see the woman’s gaze shift to where she’s hidden in the trees, but she jumps down anyway, her cloak whipping out around her feet as she lands in a solid crouch on the carriage top.

 

“It’s the Swan!” the driver shouts out. “I warned you-“ He falls silent as the woman holds up a commanding hand, his eyes bulging out with new fear, and Little John is leaping onto the driver’s seat of the carriage with improbable agility as one of the other men yanks the rope attached to the deer out of their way and into the woods. The woman doesn’t move, just cocks her head and stares at Emma again, and Emma shouts, “Go!” to Little John as they take off away from the skirmish.

 

The woman doesn’t follow, and Emma exhales. She hadn’t even noticed that she’d been holding her breath.

 

But they have the carriage, and it is in fact heavy with all the luggage inside. A vacationing noble, probably, off with her riches and the cockiness of the upper class, mistakenly choosing speed over caution and paying the price for it. That’s all this is, even if Emma can’t shake the unease brought on by that woman- still standing in the road as Merry Men make their retreat, watching them unworried in the distance- and how easily the attack had gone. They have the carriage, they have whatever’s inside, and it’s time for Emma to climb in and take stock of what it is.

 

She scrambles over to the window and slips inside, pushing away curtains to inspect the interior of the coach. There are plenty of bags, and the finery of the nobility draped around them. Dresses and jewels and a fat-looking pouch on one seat–

 

And in the opposite seat, a dark-haired girl who would have been beautiful if not for the blankness in her eyes when she turns to stare at Emma. “Swan Hood,” she says carefully. “The Hooded Swan. Whatever they call you in these parts.”

 

Emma stares, remembering just in time to be sure that her cloak is still concealing her face.

 

And oh, yes, the girl _is_ beautiful, enough so that Emma can’t stop looking at her, can’t remember to draw her arrow in time when the girl stands up and walks to the window. She’s unafraid, but there’s a recklessness in her eyes, a desperation to her uncaring that Emma recognizes all too well.

 

 _Trapped_. The girl is trapped, and it’s not just by the outlaws who’ve seized her carriage. No, this is someone beyond despair, beyond hope, beyond the belief that anyone is going to save her from whatever fate she’s been doomed to. _No one saves us but ourselves_ , Emma almost says, before she remembers that she can’t say anything at all and she _shouldn’t_ , not to this girl whom they’re going to have to tie up and leave in some distant town tonight. She thinks back to the beggar girl on the road and to another girl, fourteen and still fighting with impotence, hidden in the back of a wagon full of lumber and never expecting to have hope again.

 

Emma doesn’t reach out to people, even pretty girls a year or two older than her who would probably look so nice with smiles on their faces, who look like they may never smile again. She scowls at herself for even thinking about it, and now she’s just standing around like an idiot as the girl is walking through the carriage, about as intimidated by the famed Swan as her companion had been, and Emma can’t think of a single way to scare this girl into submission. Emma doesn’t _want_ to scare this girl at all, not when she seems so scared already of an inevitability Emma will not allow herself to ask about.

 

Then the girl turns back to her and says, almost regretful, “My mother’s going to kill you.”

 

Emma blinks under her hood and lets out an unintelligible, “Huh?”

 

The girl shakes her head. “You should run away while you can. My mother’s going to kill you,” she repeats. “The only reason she hasn’t yet is because-“ She hesitates, and then that blankness is back in her eyes, sorrow glistening at their corners. “She likes it when you run. When there’s some hope before…” She twists her fingers together, something gleaming beneath them, and a chill runs through Emma’s spine before the girl looks up again. “She has magic, you know.”

 

And _there’s_ the piece of the mystery that explains the woman’s serenity even as she must have known that her daughter was being kidnapped and her possessions stolen. Magic. Emma loathes magic, loathes the privilege of it nearly as much as she hates the nobility. Magic had been what had found James when she was three. Magic is why they’ve lost men near the Dark One’s castle. Magic is darkness for those the fairies don’t deem worthy to help, and magic only destroys.

 

She’s at the window with the girl in two quick strides, pushing the curtains aside again, when there’s a loud thump and the carriage stops short in the road. The girl’s eyes widen, and she gives Emma a push. “She’s here. Run to the woods, _now_.” Her voice is at once imperious, an aristocrat after all, but Emma can’t find the energy to hate her for it.

 

She climbs through the window, glancing worriedly at Little John as he whips the horses forward, bewildered at why they’re all frozen, and then she sees them. Branches reaching from the trees, twisting and stretching out like some kind of nightmarish living creature, snatching John from his place and lifting him into the air as he bellows out a challenge. “Like _hell_ ,” she snaps out through gritted teeth, swinging her feet out of the window to climb to the top again.

 

Firm hands grab her again, this time just above the waist, and she sees the moment that the girl’s eyes widen. “You’re a girl?” she whispers, startled.

 

“Let go of me!” Emma snaps, pulling away. Her eyes are on Little John but the girl is grasping her arm now, her other hand wrapping around Emma’s.

 

She tightens her grip, the shock of the revelation gone with the approach of her mother. “You wait here, and you’re both dead. Go! I’ll take care of him, I swear.”

 

And Emma hesitates for a moment, if only to ask, “Why do you care?”

 

The panic fades from the girl’s eyes, leaving only emptiness behind. “I don’t care about anything anymore,” she says, and something cool and delicate presses against Emma’s palm. “For your trouble,” she murmurs. “I’d hate to see you having faced my mother with no recompense.” She allows herself a tiny smile, and it’s exactly as breathtaking as Emma would have imagined. “Now leave!”

 

Emma leaves. She stumbles into the woods, climbing from tree to tree and hoping to death that they don’t suddenly come to life and attack her, too, and when she has a good vantage point of the place where Little John is being held, she perches between two branches and draws her arrows, dropping the girl’s gift into her bag before she can look at it.

 

She’s let a single arrow fly and embed itself in a writhing branch that doesn’t react to the attack when she sees the girl emerge from the coach, calling out to no one at all until there’s a poof of magic and her mother appears in the middle of the road, still with the same smile on her face. It doesn’t fade as the girl starts arguing and gesturing to Little John, and then the woman twists her hand and John is suddenly standing where the girl had been, still shouting curses at nothingness as he struggles in place.

 

He realizes he’s free and bolts to the woods where Emma had run moments before, and Emma breathes, relieved, and glances back to the wild branches that had magically grabbed him.

 

The girl is wrapped in the same position as John had been, her chin high with defiance and the frustration across her face nearly eclipsed by what might be pride, if Emma squints.

 

And she _understands_ , she gets this girl she’s only just met and seen herself in her eyes. She knows exactly what it feels like to have a tiny victory when you’re penned like livestock, one single act of autonomy when the people who have you trapped lose control of you for just a minute. The girl is terrified but she’s also _won_ , and maybe that matters in the end more than the mother who cares so little about her daughter that she would keep smiling as her daughter is suspended above her.

 

She keeps watch over the girl, listening to the faint strains of argument between her and her mother and trying not to think about what it might mean that the girl is so calm in this tree-hold, until she’s finally back on the ground and the carriage is back on its way to King Leopold.

 

* * *

 

Beetle is still tied to a tree where she’d left him, a half mile back in the woods, and he chews on her hair when she takes off her cloak and mounts him, riding exhaustedly back to where the Merry Men have made camp. She can see Little John and Will seated around a low fire, telling the others about what they’d fought today, and John beckons her to join them.

 

She does so out of half-hearted obligation, sitting up next to him and listening as he recounts the story, and she’s zoned out staring at the flames when he nudges her. “What did you say to that maiden to have her defend me so fiercely?” he rumbles, and she shrugs, feeling self-conscious in the crowd.

 

Maybe she’s officially the leader of the Merry Men, the one they follow without question and the icon that’s left King George and the rest of the rich apoplectic with rage for the past year, but she hasn’t won their loyalty, not like Little John has. They follow her because John insists on it, and behind her back she’s sure that they whisper about her- about the seventeen-year-old girl who’d taken charge of a group of forest men and given them purpose as outlaws and benefactors to the poor. About the girl who keeps herself separate from them and has no interest in being friends or even family with her men. (She’d had a family once, then another, and the falseness of family and love goes hand-in-hand with abandonment in her mind. Better duty than family. Better dinner on the table than love.) She can feel their interest on her now, their eyes on her cheeks as she flushes- from the heat of the fire, nothing more- and looks down.

 

“She said she didn’t care,” Emma finally allows, and then she remembers the trinket she’d been passed. “She gave me…” She digs into her satchel to find it. “She gave me this,” she says, staring down at the item as the reason behind the girl’s hollow eyes becomes ever clearer, and she can’t explain the sorrow that washes over her at the revelation.

 

The engagement ring in her palm glitters in the firelight, the diamond impressive and masterfully cut, so clear that she can nearly see the reflection of a gilded cage sparkling back at her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently I have _no idea_ how to keep chapters consistent lengths. I tried with this one, but the girls protested and instead this is nearly double the word count of the last, oh well.
> 
> We're past We Are Both area now and headed for The Doctor next chapter. Yikes.

When she thinks back to the girl from the carriage, months later, she can’t remember why she had been so captivated by her. She remembers a face painted delicately and eyes that had been _important_ , but the memories of them have been dulled with time and she’s had more than enough time to laugh at the way she’d romanticized the encounter, had dared to imagine a connection with a girl who’d probably only been scared out of her mind.

 

Still, though, it takes her weeks before she’s ready to part with the ring the girl had given her and use the profits to feed a sanctuary of exiled serfs from King Midas’s kingdom. It’s more valuable than she’d have ever thought and she doesn’t admit throughout that she’s hanging onto it in the hopes that whoever had given it to the girl might send out men for it, might give some tiny hint of what happened next to her. And when she does admit it, that’s the day she sends Alan-a-Dale to a metalsmith to rid herself of the jewelry, chastising herself privately for her foolishness.

 

She doesn’t even know the girl’s name, know anything about her other than the softness of her hands as they’d covered Emma’s palm and the fierceness of her defiance as she’d hovered in midair over her mother. Emma doesn’t dwell on people, doesn’t give thought to the many she’s met in the past, kindnesses given and exchanged and cruelties offered unsolicited. She thinks of her men and she thinks of her targets before she robs them, and that’s all she allows herself to contemplate.

 

It’s fitting, then, that the next time she sees the girl it’s in another of King Leopold’s carriages as the Merry Men fight its guards below.

 

* * *

“You!” she says, gaping under her hood at the girl sitting back in her seat, hands barely locked together on her lap as she gazes at Emma. She’s clad in royal finery this time, swathed in expensive fabrics and jewels that sparkle at her neck and her wrists and her ears, and when she looks up at Emma- face upturned and shining and sad, so very sad- Emma remembers exactly what it was that had left her thinking about the girl for months.

 

She’d jumped into the carriage the moment she’d seen King Leopold’s coat of arms on the side instead of taking the driver’s seat, and she doesn’t want to think about why _that_ had happened, either. That kind of eagerness is reserved for irritating King George’s lackeys. Not the off chance that a royal carriage might hold a miserable girl she’d barely met.

 

“Lady Swan,” the girl almost drawls, inclining her head as she regards Emma, and Emma’s own head tilts unconsciously as she stares at her. The blankness is still there, creasing the corners of her eyes, and Emma blinks and looks away, uncomfortable at the way her chest tightens at the sight of it. “What a surprise.”

 

Emma remembers her voice a moment too late, and she licks her lips nervously as the girl waits in silence. “Hasn’t anyone warned you off this road by now?”

 

“Oh, yes.” She tosses her hair back. It’s longer now, fuller, and the effect leaves Emma’s mouth dry. “There are all manner of bandits on the king’s road, I hear. If I value my possessions, I’m not to ride this way.” She shrugs, an unsophisticated motion that suits her age instead of her station. “But you already know that I don’t care about any of this. King Leopold will be a little poorer, and the villagers can eat better for a day.”

 

“How very noble of you.” It might have been, if it didn’t sound more bitter than earnest, and Emma wonders what her victim has against the king.

 

She picks up the travel pack beside the girl and fishes through it, half-challenging the girl to display any kind of reaction to the haphazard way she’s pulling out the goods inside. A handkerchief drops to the floor, a pair of jeweled gloves is shoved into her pocket, and she notices with some glee that the girl’s eyes are narrowing with displeasure at her callousness.

 

Which…yeah, maybe she’s just trawling for something other than emptiness on that comely face, tugging pigtails in the schoolyard when she grabs a loaf of bread and takes a bite out of it, but she thinks it’s probably worth it for the hot spots of angry color that darken the girl’s fine cheekbones.

 

“Problem?” She smirks under her hood and catches another flash of irritation before the girl’s chin is raised again and her eyes flick to the window, a hand running through that rich hair as she does.

 

“Do what you will,” the girl says, her tone supremely bored, and Emma scowls in return.

 

She spots a flash of gold behind the girl’s fingers and is moving forward before her head catches up with the rest of her body, a hand brushing aside the girl’s hair to inspect the earring below it. It’s gold filigree wound around red jewels, expensive and ornate. And when she holds it between her fingers, she can feel the soft skin of its bearer’s cheek against her hand, shivering at her touch.

 

She shivers, too, and masks it with a whisper. “How about these earrings? Do you care about these earrings?”

 

She’s close enough to the other girl that her breath is brushing against the side of her face, and she can sense the girl stiffening beneath her touch as dark eyes peer into the darkness under her hood, the game over as quickly as it had begun. “What’s your name?” Emma murmurs, her fingers stroking the jewelry and the earlobe at once. The girl makes no move to remove her hand, and Emma thinks she might have leaned into the knuckles still resting against her cheek. “Who are you to the king?”

 

And then the girl’s hands are sliding up her shoulders, her head cocked and the emptiness has been replaced with dark eyes that sing with promise and defiance and a hint of something more. “Show me your face, Lady Swan,” she hums instead, her thumbs curling around the place where Emma’s hood meets her shoulders.

 

Emma recoils. Suddenly the air of the carriage is too stifling, the girl’s face too knowing and the space between them too small. She takes a shaky step back, the girl’s fingers falling lightly from Emma’s cloak back to her lap. And then she’s fumbling for a knife, pulling one out from where it’s concealed under her cloak and brandishing it with shaky hands. “Leave the carriage,” she says, and the fear that glimmers across the girl’s face isn’t reassuring at all. “We’ve travelled far enough from your guards.”

 

The girl stares down at her hands, and for a moment Emma thinks she sees an impossible fire flicker in her palm. But it’s gone when she blinks and then the girl is rising, stepping down gracefully to the door of the coach as Emma motions to Will in the driver’s seat and they rock to a halt. “Give her one of the horses,” Emma calls out to him.

 

He frowns, his eyes flicking over to the girl who seems unsurprised by the female voice emanating from the Hooded Swan, but Emma doesn’t enlighten him. “These are thoroughbreds straight from the king’s castle. You don’t want to keep them?”

 

She doesn’t respond, just stalks over to the larger horse and unties it, leading it back to the girl. “Can you ride?” she asks, and maybe there’s a tiny bit of regret on the girl’s face as she studies her.

 

“Yes.” The girl mounts the horse with skill that startles Emma, drawing her skirts up so she can perch on its bare back as though she’s done it a thousand times before. “Thank you,” she says, smiling beneath her eyelashes, and the back of Emma’s neck is suddenly uncomfortably warm.

 

She shrugs, unwilling to say anything else to the girl, and there’s still too much closeness between them even while the girl is on horseback several feet away. She can still remember those shiny eyes, that whisper of _Show me your face, Lady Swan_ still ringing in her ears, and she pulls her cloak ever closer to her as she watches the horse and its rider turn away.

 

“Lady Swan.” The horse pauses, the girl atop it half-turned to look at her. She inclines her head at Emma. “Regina.”

 

“That’s not my name,” Emma says dumbly, and the girl’s lips spread into the second smile she’s given her thus far. Not that Emma’s counting or anything.

 

She tucks her hair behind her ears, and there’s a hair tie in her fingers that appears out of nowhere as she fastens the rest back. Her earrings gleam red and gold in the sunlight. “It’s mine.”

 

And Emma looks at her because _of course it is_ , it suits her as well as her horse and her dress and the smile still bright on her face, but she can’t think of anything to say to that revelation other than the one awful connection she can make to the name. “King Leopold wed a Regina last month.”

 

The smile fades as swiftly as it had come, melting away into nothingness and unspoken melancholy. Regina recoils as quickly as Emma had done the same, jolting the horse back into motion and turning her back to the carriage and the outlaws and the surprise on Emma’s face.

 

Emma doesn’t chase her. She’s hit by…anger, really, not anger pointed at Regina but at something frustrating and indistinct that only gets worse when they take apart the carriage and she opens Regina’s case. There are jewels to sell and money to give away but she’s left staring at the dresses and comparing them to the simple traveling clothes that Regina had been wearing the first time they’d met.

 

She draws a silvery one to her chest and wonders if Regina had ever worn it when she announces to her Merry Men, “I have an idea.”

 

* * *

In a rare burst of vanity, she’d had a mask specially made for the occasion, and she studies it with satisfaction before she puts it on. It’s the same silver as the dress she wears, feathered with white and two matching white swans surrounding the eyeholes. The feathers and flowers are enough to conceal most of her face, and she hardly thinks anyone in King George’s castle will recognize her by her lips or chin.

 

It’s James’s eighteenth birthday, and his father has already begun prospecting for a wealthy match by throwing a masquerade ball in his honor. It’s not an uncommon move, though James is young enough that there are some whispers at the door, and the nobles all come flowing through the door, eager for a royal match and distracting enough that the guards will be less alert than usual.

 

Emma is wearing Regina’s dress, and she’s grateful that the other girl- the _queen_ ,and Emma swallows her distaste and forces a smile under her mask- seems not to favor the puffy dresses that half the attending are wearing. No, this is long and sleek, the sleeves nearly sheer under delicate lacing and the material puddling at the floor. Regina’s a little shorter than she is and the dress isn’t quite a perfect fit because of it, but she’s already getting some stares from walking too rapidly and clumsily for the fit of the dress to make a difference.

 

She’s on Alan-a-Dale’s arm. He’d been deemed the most presentable of the Merry Men, and he pauses only to scold her when she trips on the length of her dress or hitches it up high enough to expose her ankles. “You are a _lady_ ,” he reminds her. “A princess, most likely. If we wish to make it past the guards, you must keep up the image.”

 

“I’m trying!” she hisses back, and then they’re walking into the castle with polite smiles on their faces, Emma careful not to look around too carefully. Her eyes need to be on the wall tapestries and the dancers and the food, not the number of guards or the locked doors or the purses held by escorts.

 

And certainly not on long staircases that seem smaller now, towering suits of armor that she’d once barely reached the knees of, and tantalizing glimpses of doors and halls that she still recognizes after all these years.

 

She stumbles only once more before they’re in the ballroom and she’s swept away from Alan-a-Dale by a man she thinks she might have robbed once in a heist near outside King John’s kingdom. She steps on his toes twice and flashes him her falsest smile and he grins back and, to his credit, makes it through half the dance before giving up.

 

She makes her way through as many men as she can, dancing her way closer and closer to the hall that opens to the throne room with every step. Alan-a-Dale is doing the same near the buffet, save the dancing part. _Men._ She scowls at him jealously when he grins at her with his mouth full. There are no women at the buffet, only a few little princesses who eat daintily and point excitedly at the men and dresses around them.

 

One of them is gawking at James, her little mask in her hands so she can watch him properly. “He’s so handsome!” she says when Emma makes her way over to her companion. “Do you think I might find love like him someday?”

 

“You can do better than him, I’m sure,” Emma says dryly, snatching a piece of chicken off Alan’s plate.

 

The girl stares at her, half-impressed and half-horrified at her lack of manners. “I do apologize,” she says, stretching out her hand. “I hadn’t seen your hair and for a moment I’d thought you were my stepmother.”

 

Emma shakes the hand, then remembers halfway through that she’s probably supposed to be kissing it or holding it or something properly ladylike. “That’s okay.” The girl is still staring at her, and she says, “You want to dance a little?” more to quell that perplexed look than out of any real desire to get back on the dance floor. Still, she’s a cute kid, and she’s only a few years from when these balls probably become agonizing even for the princesses. There’s no harm in a dance that isn’t with another overly eager man.

 

She spins her around a few times as the girl oohs and ahs at the other dancers around them. “This is my first ball since my mother died,” she tells Emma. “I danced with my stepmother at the wedding, but that wasn’t like this.” She beams. “This is so _big_! I’m only thirteen- too young to marry, of course, but I begged Father and he said that if it made me happy, Stepmother and I could travel here on our own.” Her brow furrows as she suddenly remembers her manners. “What’s your name? Where are you from?”

 

Emma’s saved from inventing something by a familiar voice. “May I cut in?” And it’s James, of course, flashing a charming smile at the girl as she squeaks out an unintelligible response and he turns to Emma. “I don’t recall dancing with you tonight, my lady…”

 

“Emma,” she says, and studies his face carefully for a reaction to her name. There’s none. “Lady Emma of Locksley.”

 

He cocks his head. “Have you been here before? There’s something familiar about you that I can’t place.”

 

“Not since I was very young,” she allows. She treads on his foot, probably accidentally, and watches with faint enjoyment as he winces. “Perhaps you might remember me from then? You wouldn’t have been more than three at the most, though.”

 

He glances at her, suddenly apprehensive under his mask, and she smiles politely in return.

 

The dance ends quickly, James still watching her with puzzled eyes and Emma focusing on not bruising his feet permanently, and it’s a relief when she can spin away into someone else’s arms.

 

Someone who catches her with a familiarity borne of doing it before, and she swallows hard when she sees eyes she knows well under the girl’s mask. “What a lovely dress,” Regina says, her gaze boring into her. “I once had one just like it.”

 

The queen spins, one finger curled around one of Emma’s as she twirls back to her. “I’m sure you wore it better than I am,” Emma retorts, keeping pace with her better than the men she’d danced with. Regina is leading firmly, guiding her steps so she’s nowhere near her toes, and this dancing thing is actually kind of enjoyable when it’s Regina pulling her close and moving away and circling around her.

 

Regina’s lips curl upward faintly when they’re close again. “It is quite striking on you,” she allows. “Particularly with that exquisite mask. Is that a swan’s feather?” One hand reaches for the mask, her hand burning against Emma’s cheek as she inspects it.

 

Emma shrugs, bare shoulders bumping up and down and a smirk threatening to break loose. “I’m a lady,” she informs Regina. “I have no time to discuss my clothing with my maids.”

 

Regina does laugh then, little jeweled peals that aren’t loud enough to make it past the two of them. “Forgive me, my lady.” She gives Emma an exaggerated curtsy in response. “I would never imply otherwise.”

 

They’re dancing to the side now, Regina having steered them further back from where Emma had been heading, but Emma finds she doesn’t mind. They’re moving in circles, Regina twirling Emma around now, too, and her hands are exactly as soft as Emma recalls, the despair on her face gone for the moment and replaced by their playful flirtation. “What brings you to this ball?” Regina asks. “The handsome prince? The masked company?” Her voice lowers a register. “The king’s full coffers?”

 

Emma purses her lips. “What, do you think I’m just a common thief now?”

 

“Lady Swan,” Regina murmurs, and her voice is low enough now that it could be husky and seductive on a more skillful woman but instead it’s just soft and playful and makes Emma lick her lips nervously nonetheless. “You are certainly, at the least, uncommon.” She offers her a shy smile, her eyes nearly glowing under her mask, and Emma is captivated all over again.

 

“I’m touched.” But she’s flushing anyway, her cheeks red from more than just the exertion of dancing, and she can’t tear her eyes away from Regina’s. Regina has seen more of her than anyone but the Merry Men, knows exactly who she is and has seen her without her cloak, now, too, and she can’t tamp down the dread that follows that knowledge.

 

As far as she knows, Regina hasn’t told anyone that the famed Swan is a woman, but she can’t earn trust with that when Emma doesn’t have any trust to offer. And now she’s exposed before her, all but her face open to the queen, and she can feel herself getting much too close, alarm bells ringing with every step she takes with Regina.

 

It’s almost a relief when small hands break between Regina and her and the adolescent girl from earlier is beaming up at them both. “You’ve met my stepmother!” she says, delighted as she twirls with them.

 

And if Emma hadn’t spent far too much time staring at Regina, she probably wouldn’t have caught the way that she falters at the touch of the girl. She doesn’t stop dancing for a moment, guiding them both into a new three-way dance, but her face loses its glow abruptly, a new sheen of plastic smiles washing away whatever real enjoyment she’d been having before her stepdaughter had arrived.

 

“I never did catch your name,” the princess says, oblivious to any changes in the queen. “I’m Snow of the White kingdom, and this is my stepmother, Queen Regina.” She smiles up at Regina with unabashed adoration, and Emma feels Regina’s hand tighten in hers, then relax.

 

“Yes, what is your name?” Regina echoes, turning to her with a smile so bright and empty that it’s almost painful to see.

 

And she could have made something up, kept another tiny piece of herself guarded from this woman, but there’s so much dishonesty around her right now- in Regina’s eyes, in this kingdom and the castle itself and the boy who styles himself as prince- that she finds that she has little patience for more lies right now. “Emma of Locksley,” she offers, recalling for the second time that night the home of one of her earlier noblewoman caretakers. “Just Emma to you,” she offers, glancing briefly at little Snow before her eyes are back on Regina’s.

 

“Is that so?” Regina’s voice is almost a whisper, and Emma dips her head in acknowledgement before spinning away from both of them, embarrassed at how vulnerable she’s made herself.

 

* * *

Alan-a-Dale has vanished from the ballroom, as far as she can tell. She imagines that he’s found riches of his own in some lady’s purse- however those riches may have shown themselves- and he’s either been thrown from the castle or is entertaining in his own inimitable way. She doesn’t care. She’d never wanted an escort tonight, anyway.

 

Her agenda with King George is hers alone, and she doesn’t like to bring others into it, particularly when it’s as foolhardy as this mission is. She’s banking on a lot of things- an unguarded throne room, her own ability to discern real jewels from the fake, and an old memory that might not even be reliable. At best, she’ll have a particularly lucrative trophy and King George will be furious. At worst, she’ll be thrown into a dungeon or worse. She wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

 

She hurries through the hallway to the throne room, peering across the hall as though she’s searching for something, and offers the guard- a single guard, looking longingly toward the buffet tables visible from the ballroom- a nervous smile. “I’m sorry, I’m looking for my brother. I thought I saw him come this way?”

 

“Haven’t seen him,” the guard grunts.

 

She frowns, pouting under her mask. “He went in that room, I know it. Would you escort me, sir?” She stretches out her arm and keeps the pout in place, licking her lips reflexively and watching with satisfaction as the guard watches the swipe of her tongue. She’s never made for a convincing ingénue, but this man doesn’t seem perturbed by her clumsiness when she grabs his arm and they step into the room.

 

He’s a bit more perturbed when she angles her body to take his weight and flips him over her, sending him crashing to the floor, but by then it’s already too late. She grabs a poker from a coat of arms on the wall, swinging it at his helmet with a loud bang, and his eyes roll back in his head and he falls back further, unconscious. “Sorry about that,” she says, dropping the poker beside him.

 

The room is empty, the king and all his guards busy with the ball- and King George is not a rich king who can afford so many servants to keep his throne room when he’s trying to impress a few dozen kingdoms. Emma knows that the coffers of the kingdom are rapidly emptying, and James’s early marriage is one of his last-ditch efforts to keep the kingdom from losing everything within a decade. It’s why he wears a counterfeit crown, too afraid of his crown jewels being damaged or stolen in a crowd like this one.

 

Unfortunately for him, Emma’s spent years learning the difference between real gems and even the most skilled fakes, and she’s known that he’s been hiding his crown for nearly a year now. And she also thinks she knows where it might be thanks to a fading memory of her last time in this very room.

 

She moves to circle the king’s throne, tracing the gold leaf pattern that’s woven across the sides and back of it until her fingers touch one leaf that depresses under her fingers. A square of metal below it slides into the chair, and there it is- the king’s true crown.

 

She reaches for it when something spews out at her, bright and gold and blinding. _Fairy dust?_ she has enough time to wonder, and then she’s struggling but frozen in place, bound by the fairy dust that guarded the crown and unable to escape it.

 

And across the room, the guard stirs in his sleep and lets out a low groan. She stares wild-eyed, fighting against the fairy dust that glows around her midsection, trying to raise her hands to push against the throne but it’s in vain. She’s trapped here, awaiting her discovery and imprisonment and probably her execution, and there’s no way to escape this snare.

 

“What are you doing?” demands a voice from the doorway. Her mask is off and her eyes are wide as she stares at Emma, and Emma can’t help but drink in the sight of Regina as the other girl stands across the room. She might be the one to call for more guards, but she doesn’t seem very interested in leaving or exposing Emma at all.

 

“What do you think?” Emma offers tiredly. “This is kind of what I do, remember?”

 

Regina bites her lip, glancing once at the guard and then back at Emma, the gold of her magical prison barely gleaming from behind the throne. “I think you need some help,” she says decisively, walking to Emma.

 

Regina takes her hand and the fairy dust loosens around her arm, though it still holds her in place. “You should know better than to steal from a king in his home,” she says, reproach in her voice. “Why must you rob him, anyway? Don’t you have enough from what you took from me last week?”

 

Emma shrugs, feeling suddenly self-conscious. “It’s not about the money,” she mumbles. “I don’t…we don’t keep it anyway. That’s our thing. We steal from the rich and give to the poor.” She squeezes Regina’s hand. “You should go. If they find you here, you’ll be in just as much trouble as I am.”

 

Regina shrugs dismissively. “I don’t care about that.” Her eyes cloud over, and her face is stiff and distant with indifference that can’t conceal her pain.

 

“You look beautiful tonight.” The words tear out of her mouth, unbidden and irrelevant except that it’s all she can think about now that Regina’s mask is off, her dark eyes highlighted by smoky makeup and her dress matching the inviting crimson of her lips. And if she’s going to spend the rest of her life in a prison cell, then maybe this is the most important thing she can tell anyone first.

 

“Oh.” Regina’s eyes round and then she has a hand on Emma’s mask again, her forefinger and her thumb stroking the softness of the swan feather. “Can I take this off, Lady Swan?” she asks quietly.

 

“It really is Emma,” Emma feels obliged to tell her.

 

Regina smiles at her, sunshine parting the darkness that shrouds her. “Oh, I know.” Her fingers have moved to explore the curves of Emma’s face, tracing her chin and the arc of her jaw up to her hair.

 

And Emma is afraid, even now, even when this might be the last moment she’s free in her life. “Please don’t take off my mask,” she whispers, and Regina looks at her for a long moment, yearning written across her face as she winds her hand through Emma’s curls. Her thumb scrapes the side of the mask, dipping under for just a moment, and Emma inhales slowly. “Regina…”

 

The other girl frowns, not bothering to hide her disappointment. “You don’t trust me.”

 

Emma manages a smile. “Don’t take it personally. I don’t really trust anyone.”

 

“What about your brotherhood of men?” Regina’s thumb is still half under her mask, stroking the skin concealed there, and when she pulls it away Emma can’t stop a soft sigh of loss. “Aren’t they loyal to you and each other alone?”

 

“You’ve done your research.” She can imagine Regina, alone in a castle with a stepdaughter she clearly dislikes and life she wants nothing more than to escape, subtly inquiring from her guards and ladies-in-waiting about the Merry Men and their leader. (And maybe there has been a time or two that Swan Hood has ridden past that same castle with curious eyes while on the road this past week. King Leopold’s kingdom _is_ only a day’s ride from Sherwood Forest, after all. Of course she’d have reason to pass by.) “You might have noticed though-“ She gestures to herself with the hand restrained by the fairy dust. “Not really a brother.”

 

Regina laughs, dropping her hand from Emma’s, and the fairy dust around her falls to the ground with a silent burst of color and a startled “Oh!” from the queen. There’s another moan from the guard at the cry and Regina hisses, “We have to go!” and yanks at Emma’s hand again.

 

She hesitates, letting go of Regina to crouch down and inspect the crown’s hiding place. “I just need to get this.”

 

“No, you don’t! It’s just another toy for you to barter off, and it’s _not worth it_.” Regina levels a reproving glare at her. “You are _such_ a child.”

 

“I’m sev- I’m eighteen!” she protests. “How old are you, anyway?” _Too young to be a queen,_ she thinks despite herself, and doesn’t explain why her face falls when she looks back up at Regina.

 

But Regina’s eyeing her oddly as she drags her away, and Emma steers them in the opposite direction of the ballroom toward the end of the hall. There’s an exit here to the stables, and she can’t take any chances if the guard wakes up and remembers the girl in the dress.

 

“You really are so young,” Regina says when they’re safely outside, shivering in the cold in their dresses. “I hadn’t thought– How did you become the leader of a group of lawless outlaws?”

 

“Mostly by accident,” Emma admits. “I’d wanted to run with the Merry Men for years now, but they’d been…reluctant to let me come along.” Little John had been the closest thing she’d had to a guardian for the past three and a half years, and she’d cut off half her hair and bound her breasts and he’d still insisted that she stay behind with the other women in the camp. She’d raged and whined and threatened him, but he’d remained resolute, so she’d stolen one of Will’s oldest cloaks and started following them on their carriage raids anyway. She’s better with a bow than any of them and she’d saved them a few botched attacks before they’d ever known that it had been Emma who’d been their mysterious backup.

 

It had taken months before they’d managed to catch her and uncloak her, but by then she’d become their most visible icon- a source of frustration for royals throughout the kingdoms, and a point of pride for the poorest townspeople. Little John had conceded that she be allowed to join the Merry Men, and they’d all reluctantly deferred to her from then on.

 

“If Little John wasn’t so respected, I don’t think anyone would take me seriously,” she concludes. Regina’s been listening with rapt attention, their hands swinging together between them as they walk through the castle grounds. She’s said much too much and she can’t stop, not when Regina’s face is turned to her like she’s the most fascinating person she’s ever met. “Between him and the legends that have been cropping up about me- did you know that I once fought off an ogre with my bare hands?”

 

“I did not.” Regina’s eyes sparkle with amusement as she lifts Emma’s hand to inspect it. “This hand?”

 

“My hood never even fell from my face,” Emma says modestly.

 

Regina laughs, and it’s a little wistful. “I can’t imagine what it would be like, to change your life like that. Even if it’s only to become a thief-“ And she’s frowning down at Emma for a moment, disapproval warring with longing- “It seems wonderful.”

 

“It’s okay,” Emma mumbles, suddenly uncomfortable. She might live in a tent in the woods and Regina in a castle, but there’s no mistaking the anguish that accompanies Regina for any kind of joy at her riches. “There must be something you can do, too. To change things.”

 

Regina doesn’t look at her, the girl replaced by a distant queen at once. “I do what I can.” She drops Emma’s hand suddenly, wrapping her arms around her waist. “There’s no more happiness for me in this life.”

 

She says it with such certainty that Emma shudders. “That can’t be true.”

 

There’s a ghost of a smile on Regina’s face when she turns to look at her. “I wish that were so.”

 

They’re rounding the castle now, walking past the stables toward the exit where they’d run from, and Emma can see a dozen guards patrolling the area, ostensibly searching for the girl who’d nearly stolen the king’s crown. “We should go back inside. I don’t want you getting in any trouble and starting a war.” She peeks at Regina through her eyelashes and is pleased to see her roll her eyes in response.

 

“Go home, Lady Swan,” she orders as they stand there. “I won’t have you caught in petty thievery by a king as cruel as this one, either.”

 

She scowls, half serious about it. She wants to stay, even at this awful ball with too much dancing and too many dresses and not enough women at the buffet. It hasn’t been a bad night, and it might be worth a try to sneak back into the throne room without Regina and show her just how adept a thief Emma is. (Regina might be impressed, but Emma’s pretty sure that she’ll just get a lecture out of it. Still, Regina lecturing her would probably be nearly as fun as Regina laughing at her.) “You can’t tell me what to-“

 

“ _Emma_.” It’s the first time her name’s been on Regina’s lips, and it makes something come loose and puddle deep in her stomach. “You need to go.”

 

She’s saying, “Okay,” before she can argue again, something about the combination of those eyes on her and that use of her name leaving her obedient to Regina in an instant; and she’s _such_ an idiot but it doesn’t stop her from following Regina’s command, arms wrapped around her as she walks as though it can somehow ward off the queen who’s already under her skin.

 

She’s not entirely sure she wants to.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nah, I didn't see the bts pictures and stay up until 4 AM writing this last night. That's ridiculous. (8 
> 
> This chapter borrows a bit of dialogue from 2x05: The Doctor. Also probably the darkest chapter of the story. Regina's at a place with a lot of power and instability and it all gets very twisted for a while, but I promise I'll make it better.
> 
> ....eventually.

Regina and Snow have never looked more like sisters, dark-haired and breathless and flushed from the wind that whips past them as Emma circles them on horseback. They’re in their castle’s gardens, Regina holding a hand in front of Snow to keep her back from the dust Beetle’s kicked up, and there are guards coming closer as Emma makes one last revolution around them and snatches the hat off Regina’s head.

 

 _Lady Swan!_ Regina mouths, but she’s laughing silently, half-curtsying as Emma settles the hat onto her own hooded head and tips it jauntily.

 

“Was that very valuable?” Snow is asking as she rides off. “The Hooded Swan, here! In my father’s castle! I can’t imagine what would have brought him to this place.”

 

Emma can just barely hear Regina’s returning snicker over the sound of hoofbeats and she grins to herself as she rides into the woods, following a narrow path she’d only found yesterday. The week spent scouting out Leopold’s castle had been more than worth it just for the delight on Regina’s face when she’d come riding out of the woods in the middle of the morning.

 

She should have taken more than a hat, maybe, she considers when she studies it later. It’s pretty and there’s some beading that might be worth something, but it’s not enough to appease her curious men, who’d been watching her with searching eyes when she’d ridden off from camp alone these past few days. It’s not that she has anything to hide, and there _are_ certain benefits to having a secret path to a king’s castle.

 

But she hadn’t had anything on her mind but Regina’s face when she’d ride out from the woods to greet her, the surprise and the delight she’d anticipated and gotten. She rubs her knuckles against the side of her neck, feeling warmth spread outward and bubble within her chest.

 

 _Worth it_ , she thinks again, and she’s already making plans for her next visit.

 

* * *

This time, she rides around nearly the entire castle before she sees the white-clad figure in the gardens, kneeling beside a small tree with her hands pressed to its trunk. She thinks she sees it glow for a moment, but when she shakes her head the bluish tinge is gone and Regina is straightening, thin shoulders stiffening under her dress. “I don’t need an escort,” she snaps before she turns, and Emma casts an appreciative eye at the way her hair sweeps down along the curves of her back. “Go away.”

 

Emma halts Beetle in his place, glancing around to make sure that there are no eyes on the queen and her cloaked visitor. The castle grounds are all but empty in this area- which is why, she suspects, Regina is here to begin with. “Why is it you’re always telling me to leave? I’m going to get a complex.”

 

Regina spins around so quickly that her dress rises around her, then settles. “Emma!” Excitement wars with worry on her face. “You shouldn’t be here. If they see you–“

 

Emma eyes her speculatively. “Hm. Give me your necklace then.” She hops off of Beetle, reaching over between them to finger the necklace in question. Her knuckles brush against the bare skin of Regina’s collarbone, probably incidentally. It’s a very nice collarbone. “Tell them I threatened you and robbed you like the evil bastard I am.”

 

Regina rolls her eyes. “And just what are you planning on doing with your plunder, outlaw?” Emma’s fingers stroke the place where the necklace dips and her breath hitches. “Will you feed a starving family? Donate it to the nearest temple? Strangle King George in his sleep?”

 

“You know me so well.” Regina’s dress is a modest cut, high above her breasts and down to her feet, but the necklace falls below it and Emma follows the curve determinedly, pulling the dress down ever so slightly.

 

Regina grabs it with a trembling hand. “You are a little evil after all, aren’t you,” she breathes.

 

“I might even be a bastard,” Emma smirks, curling her hand around Regina’s. “Who knows?”

 

“You don’t know?” Their hands fall together but don’t release, and now it’s Regina who’s stroking Emma’s hand with her thumb, leaving a tingling trail across her skin.

 

Emma shrugs under her cloak. “I don’t know anything about my parents. I was…taken in by others. I know there’d been some kind of sale for me, but the people who’d bought me as a baby gave me up after a few years and I spent most of my childhood shuttled from family to family.” It’s easy to force herself to be dispassionate about it now, to rattle off the facts she knows instead of dwelling on old worthlessness and non-belonging. She doesn’t choke on a single word.

 

But Regina already knows her better than she’d ever expected, and the hand on hers tightens and the queen’s eyes darken. “I’m so sorry, Emma.” And then they’re staring at each other for a moment, Emma’s eyes concealed under the darkness of her hood but Regina finding them shining through anyway, and she hesitates for just long enough for Regina’s arm to snake under her cloak and wrap around her waist in a halfway hug.

 

“It’s okay,” she mutters, angling herself next to Regina so their positioning is a little less awkward. “It’s not a big deal.” And she’s uncomfortable again, enough to blurt out, “Your parents kept you and look what happened to you.” Which is probably insensitive, but at least it makes Regina stop looking at her like…she’s some lost little girl who never had anything. She’s doing fine.

 

Regina’s arm relaxes against her, but she doesn’t let go. “How very callous of you,” she says dryly. “Is it that difficult for you to accept some compassion?”

 

“Pity,” Emma corrects, licking her lips. “I have a good life. I don’t need your pity.”

 

Regina’s fingers dance along her waist, just above the line of her trousers. “Oh, and you don’t pity me?” She doesn’t let go of her, doesn’t turn from her sapling to look at Emma. “Why are you here, Lady Swan?”

 

“Wh-What?”

 

“Here. This castle. Why are you here?” And for a moment Emma can see Regina’s mother in her, in the steel that firms her expression when her eyes are looking away. “Is this only a small concession to a miserable girl? Why do you bother with me at all?”

 

“That’s not what-“ Emma freezes, utterly stymied by this new line of questioning. Why _is_ she here? What is she doing, planning new reasons to see Regina as often as she can? She’d camped out alone in the woods around the castle last night just so she could be here in the morning and wait for Regina to emerge from the castle all day.

 

It’s not pity, she knows that much if only from the way she can’t stop thinking about Regina and the way she’d looked in that dress at the ball. It has nothing to do with pity or even compassion. This is for Regina but it’s just as much for her, for the tentative friendship they’ve formed and the way something feels warm and free in her chest when she’s around the queen.

 

But she doesn’t know how to say any of that and she doesn’t even know if she should, so instead she pulls away from Regina and moves back to stand against Beetle. Regina turns to stare at her at last, and her expression is so determined that it hurts. “Why won’t you let me see your face?”

 

“I-“ It’s too dangerous. Regina already knows enough about her, and Emma relies too much on her anonymity to risk being identified by a queen- a queen who seems to hate her position, yes, but a queen nonetheless. She won’t have Regina any more involved in any of this than she is already and she won’t take that risk just to appease Regina. It’s all logic and protection and there’s no reason why Regina’s question would create this lump in her throat, why she feels like she might be undone because of the brown eyes fixed on her.

 

“What are you afraid of?” Regina whispers, reaching for her hood. “Emma…” The material is between her fingers now and Emma is rooted to the spot, unable to push Regina away or to coax her forward and unable to figure out which she wants.

 

Regina waits, and Emma stays silent, her teeth clamped on her lower lip to keep it from quivering.

 

“Alright,” Regina says slowly, and there’s no masking the frustration on her face. “I’d better go inside now. Snow will be searching for me.” This time she’s the one to leave, to turn and tread slowly back toward the castle as Emma watches from beside Beetle, safe under her hood and feeling unnaturally exposed anyway.

 

* * *

She visits King George’s kingdom and sets a ceremonial tree planted for James’s eighteenth birthday on fire in an attempt to distract herself, but even that is cut short by a dark-skinned knight she’s never seen before who nearly catches up to her while James rides beside him and looks amused at the whole situation. She sets up ambushes on the king’s road and brings in enough loot that her men stop sneaking bewildered glances at her and after a week and a half of pretending that she doesn’t miss Regina, she’s riding right back to the White kingdom and its queen.

 

She pulls her hood on as she mounts Beetle and refuses to wonder if Regina will even want to see her.

 

They’re less than a mile from the castle when Beetle suddenly rears back, his golden mane whipping against her face as he neighs a protest. “Dammit! Beetle–” But then she sees the movement in the trees, a dark horse- no, a _unicorn_ , but a black one like she’s never seen before- whinnying in terror as it rises and falls.

 

The thief inside her is immediately calculating how much she might make from the sale of a black unicorn. Or how she’d look perched atop it, riding through the streets in her white cloak with a massive creature like that. She grins, sliding off of Beetle and tying him to the closest tree before she slips through the trees to get a little closer to the unicorn.

 

“Now, show me what you’ve learned,” says an odd, creaky voice from the clearing where the unicorn stands, and Emma hesitates, moving closer with all the stealth she can muster. “Immobilize it.”

 

And she manages to get a good view of the clearing just in time to watch Regina raise her hands determinedly and trap the unicorn in place with a surge of blue magic. She’s beaming, eyes alight and innocent and eager, and Emma can only stare from the shadows with horror.

 

 _Magic_. Regina is using magic, and Emma takes an involuntary step backward, her mouth falling open as she does.

 

She’s afraid to move, to call the attention of the man who’s training Regina. He fills her with an odd sort of dread, a familiarity she can’t place that frightens her even as Regina smiles at him and nearly preens under his praise. He looks inhuman and terrible and dark, and she can’t bear the sight of him so close to Regina’s brightness.

 

She watches with barely contained dread as he attempts to drive Regina to take the unicorn’s heart (Like what her mother had done to her true love, he says, and Emma swallows at that pronouncement) and Regina can’t, of course, because she’s _Regina_ and she’s not her mother and she’ll never be– but then the man-creature is taking it instead and giving it to Regina and it’s glowing in her hands and Emma takes a breath so strained that it sounds like a sob.

 

“Crush it,” the man says. Regina doesn’t, and Emma nearly barrels through the trees right then to defend her from her teacher.

 

“Do you want me to teach you or not?” the man asks, and Regina says her _Yes_ so quickly that Emma stops again.

 

“What’s holding you back?” the man asks, and Regina says nothing as both the man and the unicorn vanish in a puff of magic, leaving the queen standing alone in the clearing, her hand rising to cover her mouth. Her eyes are glassy with tears and she’s staring at the hand that had held the heart as though it contains the answers to every question she’s ever had and she’s let it all slip away.

 

Emma starts toward her again, the new wariness of _Regina with magic_ battling the sorrow of _Regina is crying_ and losing against the tears just as Regina drops her hand and runs for the woods.

 

She crashes into Emma and they both topple to the ground, Emma holding her hood in place automatically as she does. “Emma,” Regina says dully. “Are you spying on me?” She looks accusing and her face is still wet with tears, and there’s no smile in her eyes this time, no eagerness that lights up her face when she sees Emma; and Emma bites back her disappointment and comes back defensive instead.

 

“I wasn’t- You’re learning magic,” she says accusingly. Regina had been sprawled out half on top of her, and she pulls away so quickly at that charge that she nearly yanks down Emma’s cloak in the process. “Is _that_ how the fairy dust released me at James’s ball?”

 

Regina shrugs moodily, and Emma’s reminded of the girl she’d first seen in a carriage months ago, wearing an engagement ring and closed off to the world. “But your mother used magic,” she says, not comprehending. She can’t reconcile the Regina who’d frozen that unicorn with the Regina who’d stayed defiant in her mother’s magical trap, not like this. “That man said she–“

 

“Don’t,” Regina says, and her voice is trembling like she’s going to cry. “Don’t talk about that.”

 

But she does anyway, because this is a piece of Regina that she’s never seen before and she pushes too hard, longs for more and more even as she refuses to give up any more of herself to Regina. “Who was she? He? Your…your true love.” She swallows again, hating those words as she hears them. True love is the stuff of nobles and the wealthy, those who can afford to go around having the love they write legends of. The idea of Regina having had it makes her nauseous and angry and devastates her in ways she can’t entertain right now.

 

And Regina caves, her refusal forgotten as she sits up and pulls her knees close to her. “His name was Daniel.” And she’s already shaking, already nearly in tears. “He was- He was the only one who made life around my mother bearable. We were going to run away together when Mother accepted the king’s proposal for me.”

 

Emma shifts to sit beside her, touching her shoulder with a tentative hand. Regina folds into her at once, burying her face in the crook of Emma’s arm and muffling the rest of her words in it. “Snow White told my mother and she killed him. Gave us her blessing, then tore out his heart and crushed it.”

 

And her falseness and her pain around Snow is clear now, an explanation as horrifying as anything else that’s become of Regina’s life until now. “I’m so sorry.” She hurts for Regina even as a selfish part of her is almost relieved in that moment, glad about something she has no business being glad about.

 

“I couldn’t do it,” Regina is saying into her cloak, and it takes a moment before Emma realizes that she’s talking about the unicorn. “I can’t become her. Can’t do the horrible things she did. I just wanted to be happy.”

 

“And magic makes you happy?” Emma demands, pushing ever forward. “I saw what your mother did to you after you sent me away. You think that kind of power will make you _happy_?”

 

The words burst from Regina like they’re her final lifeline. “It’ll make me free!” she chokes out. “Emma, don’t you understand? It’s the only power I have. The only control I have over my own life. So if it’s magic, then yes, I’ll let magic make me happy.” She’s finally crying, sobbing into Emma’s shoulder as Emma wraps an arm around her, and when she looks up, her eyes are alarmingly vacant. “I don’t care about anything else.”

 

“I could make you happy,” Emma says, and fumbles her words when Regina pulls back to stare at her with dark eyes. “I mean…you could run away with me. Come back to my camp and the Merry Men.” It’s ludicrous to even entertain the idea, but she can feel her own excitement building at the thought of it. Regina around every day, Regina sharing her tent with her and riding with her and _happy_ at last. “No one will ever know. You’d be safe. I’d take care of you.”

 

Regina is still staring at her, her face very still as she sits too close, millimeters away from Emma’s hooded face. And then her hands slide up Emma’s torso, Emma wobbly under her touch as she reaches the edge of the hood. “Show me your face, Lady Swan,” she says softly.

 

And if this is all Regina needs from her, then maybe she can give it. Maybe she craves giving it away to her, if it means that she might be able to keep Regina. She’s lost everyone else she’s ever cared about, short of Little John, and maybe this is all she needs to make sure that Regina stays. “Okay,” she whispers. “Okay.”

 

Regina pushes the hood back slowly, like she isn’t sure Emma might not have some terrible third eye or growth concealed under her cloak, and Emma manages a smile as her face is revealed to Regina. “Oh,” Regina breathes, gazing at her, brushing stray hairs out of Emma’s face. Her hair is tied back but falling out of its clip, and Regina winds her fingers through it and tugs it free, spreading Emma’s hair around her face.

 

Emma brushes a hand through it, feeling suddenly self-conscious. “So, uh…this is me.” She’s probably all grimy from riding and crawling through the woods, less than presentable especially near Regina, who’s got the same kind of outfit as Emma’s on but wears it as well as a coronation dress.

 

“Emma.” Regina’s eyes are glittering through drying tears, and she presses her palm to Emma’s cheek. “My Emma.”

 

 _Yours_ , she almost says, leaning into Regina’s touch, and the queen brushes a kiss across her forehead, heedless of the dirt that must be crusted into it by now.

 

And then she’s settling back down and Emma licks her lips as her eyes flutter closed, feeling Regina’s breath so close that she can nearly taste it. She inhales, scenting the woods and perfume and horses and salty tears, and Regina’s lips are just grazing hers when there’s another strangled sob from Regina.

 

Emma’s eyes fly open as Regina recoils, just as she had from the unicorn, and there’s an identical look of pain on her face when she pulls away and covers her face. “Regina-“ Emma starts, but Regina’s shaking her head, anguished.

 

“I shouldn’t– I can’t– I have to go.” She turns around and flees through the woods, leaving Emma still sitting on the ground with her hood down and her heart pounding.

 

* * *

She rides back to Sherwood Forest and fires arrows into a target until she’s hit the mark every single time and at least two of them have gouged holes through her board into the tree behind it. Little John stands silently behind her and she ignores him with extra determination, thwacking a final arrow into her target so hard that it splinters the wood above its point.

 

She doesn’t think about Regina. She _doesn’t_.

 

She rides out to King Midas’s castle the next morning alone. It’s much further and riskier than the local kingdoms, but lucrative enough a visit that she makes the trip anyway. She steals as much gold as Beetle can carry and makes the trip back home in a day and a half without stopping more than once for a brief rest.

 

She’s stretched out on her sleeping mat during her break, Beetle resting beside her, when she hears a puff of wind and Regina is suddenly there, sitting beside her. “Are you real?” she asks, groggily squinting at the dark-haired girl.

 

“No.” Regina shakes her head vehemently. “No, I’m not here. You’re dreaming.” Soft fingers smooth out her hair and caress her cheek, and Emma’s sure it must be a dream, then. “Emma?”

 

“Yeah?” She closes her eyes again, enjoying Dream Regina’s ministrations. She wonders if this Regina would run away if she kisses her.

 

Regina’s fingers hesitate for a moment. “How do you stay so…so you?”

 

“So me?”

 

“You’re a thief and an outlaw.” Regina untangles Emma’s hair, spreading it around her in a halo of blonde. “You run around with a bow and arrow and you _must_ have killed people, haven’t you? You’ve done dark things.” She persists before Emma can ponder the accuracy of that statement. “I think if…if my mother had done those same things, they would have consumed her. Made her someone else.”

 

“Because of magic?”

 

“Because of power.” The other girl drops her hands to press them to her stomach, shivering in the cold like this isn’t a weird dreamscape. “I’m afraid, Emma,” she whispers. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to be like you. You need to tell me how to be good when there’s nothing left. When there’s no one–” She stops abruptly, sniffling back tears.

 

Emma yawns, struggling to focus on Regina’s face. “I dunno,” she finally mumbles. “This is just how things turned out for me.” She’d once been a thief because it had been the only way to survive, and later because it had been the only way she’d be accepted by the Merry Men. “I’m not that good.” She gives to the poor because she has money and no interest in it and they need it. And she steals from the rich because she’s an angry teenager who’d been burned by one too many nobles. Maybe one day she’ll learn to be more noble, to see philanthropy as her duty instead of just a bit of fun. But she’s not there yet, and it’s exhausting to contemplate changing her mindset so completely when it’s her whole _life_.

 

She flushes, ashamed at her own selfishness, and opens her eyes to stare up at Dream Regina. “You’re good, too. Better than me. You haven’t told anyone about me.” Another thought occurs to her, and she tries to sit up before a soft hand is laid against her stomach, pressing her down. “And you stay in that castle and take care of Snow, even after she hurt your Daniel.” There’s a sharp intake at the name, and Emma smiles blearily at Dream Regina. “You called me your Emma, do you remember?”

 

“I shouldn’t have.”

 

She frowns. “But I wanted…” And just as quickly, the protest is gone and replaced by renewed exhaustion. “I’m just so tired.” She closes her eyes again and gentle fingers trace the lines of her face.

 

“Go back to sleep,” Regina says softly, her nails scraping against Emma’s lips and staying there. “I’m sorry I disturbed you.”

 

“I thought this was a dream.” She forces her eyes open again, but now Regina’s gone, faded back into her unconscious mind along with her questions.

 

Beetle is up again three hours later and she finishes her ride home to the Merry Men, pushing thoughts of the dream from her head as she does.

 

* * *

She’s practicing her archery again once the excitement from her loot wears down and it’s been distributed to a small town just an hour away from King Leopold’s castle. She’d been able to see it from far, towering over the kingdom, and now she’s frustrated about everything and nothing and desperate to distract herself from thoughts of Regina.

 

They’d almost kissed. Emma had _wanted_ to kiss her. And Regina had run away.

 

She’d shown Regina her face. Regina knows her name now, knows her face, knows nearly everything there is to know about Emma. And she’d looked at her and kissed her forehead and found her wanting, as everyone before her had done in the past.

 

“Dammit!” She draws back the string of her arrow and lets it fly at an innocent rabbit running past, spearing it perfectly with her single shot. She doesn’t know why Regina had run. Maybe she’d forgotten something back at the castle. Maybe she’d seen something in the woods. Maybe…maybe…

 

Dream Regina had been right. Regina shouldn’t have called Emma hers if she didn’t want her to begin with. She shouldn’t have looked at her like she’d _wanted_ to come back with Emma, like she’d been tempted to leave her home of luxury and comfort to go camp out in the woods with a thief. She shouldn’t have…

 

No. _Emma_ is at fault here. She’d been fool enough to chase around a queen, making overtures and holding hands and spilling all the secrets of her past, and now she’s paying the price for trusting too easily. Now she feels sick when she thinks too much and her head hurts all the time and she just wants to _surrender_ , to hide in the woods like she had as an orphan child and have a long cry about Regina and her self-indulgent belief that she’d meant something more to her.

 

Regina had had true love in her grasp once; why would she ever settle for Emma?

 

She inhales, slowing her breathing so she can’t cry, and methodically collects her arrows, stalking past her men into the forest beyond their camp. She ignores the curiosity on their faces, even when Arthur mutters in a low voice, “Has she met a lad?” and there are guffaws following her into the underbrush.

 

She’s still walking a half hour later, and she hasn’t wept. So she won’t, she vows. She can’t cry over stupidity, she can just learn from her mistakes and never trust like that again. She has more important things to–

 

Regina appears, quite abruptly, in the woods in front of her.

 

“Lady Swan,” she says, and Emma can only stare. The woodsy vests and long white dresses are gone now and Regina’s dressed all in black leather with an accompanying cape, her hair pulled sharply from her face and piled atop her head. She looks…she looks _really_ , really good. And really, really not Regina-like at all, as though she’d donned this mask this afternoon and turned all her softness into the harshness of reality.

 

Emma manages a, “What happened?” before Regina is striding toward her, eyes focused and determined, and when she claims Emma’s lips now, it is unmistakably a claim. _My Emma_ , she’s saying, nipping at Emma’s lips and drawing her closer. Two fingers hooked onto Emma’s pants, yanking her closer. A trail of kisses down Emma’s neck. _Mine._

And… _oh_. Emma gasps and pulls her tighter, kissing her back with the same urgency. Whatever the change in costume might have meant, this still feels like Regina under it all, Regina whom she’s found too many opportunities to touch– but never like this until now. Regina who pushes back against her, rigid and stubborn as always, Regina who’s struggling to dominate her even as Emma pushes back and her skin is on _fire_ , hot and sweating already from the way Regina is sliding her hands all over her, laying claim to every uncovered inch of her like a conquering queen.

 

She thinks she might have filtered out the world for a moment, shut out everything but the taste of Regina’s mouth and the skin exploring her skin, lost in sensations that are so much _more_ than ever before. This feels right. This is something she’d happily spend the rest of her life doing and never look back, and she loses herself in it in a perfect moment.

 

When she comes back to reality, it’s because Regina is unbuttoning Emma’s shirt with little tingles of magic, pulling it open to slide her hand across every bit of skin exposed. Emma sighs with anticipation, sliding her thigh between Regina’s legs. She’s done this before but it’s never felt like this. Never been with someone who matters. Never with Regina. The thought crosses her mind that they might be moving too fast, but that vanishes the moment Regina palms her left breast, flicking the nipple with her thumb, and Emma presses into her with a sob. “Regina…”

 

And then, abruptly, Regina’s hand isn’t quite on her breast but it isn’t off of it, either, and Emma is suddenly numb below her hand. She can’t feel anything except there’s an odd pain in her chest, a tugging that makes her choke and hits her core at the same time, like there are phantom fingers delving into her from the inside out. _What’s happening to-_ she tries to say, but the pain is too strong and she can’t remember how to speak, how to pull away, how to do anything but stare wide-eyed at Regina as the other girl pulls her hands out of her chest, a glowing heart in her grasp.

 

“It’s so easy,” Regina whispers, her own eyes on Emma’s heart as well. She squeezes it and Emma chokes, her whole chest compressing and tears springing to her eyes. “I could take you now. Do anything I wanted with you. I can do anything,” she repeats wonderingly, and Emma can’t breathe, can’t process any of this.

 

There’s enough of the innocent Regina still within her, the delight and exhilaration still so clear and familiar in her eyes that Emma wants to vomit. “What are- what are you do-“ The words come out in gasps as Regina turns the heart in her hands and Emma doubles over onto the ground, crying out again.

 

Regina gazes down at her, and then back to the heart she’s so entranced by. “It’s so _easy_ ,” she murmurs. “I never thought it would be so simple. Just reach in…and no one can control me again. No one has power over me but myself.” Her face softens in a strange perversion of the Regina Emma had known before today. This Regina…this isn’t her Regina, no matter how much she looks like her. This _can’t_ be Regina. Whatever’s happened over the past two weeks, it couldn’t have changed her like this.

 

“Come here, Emma,” Regina says, and her legs automatically unbend and walk toward Regina again. She looks away, unwilling to see the perversely tender expression on the queen’s face. “Look at me,” Regina coaxes, and she has no choice but to look. “You really could be mine like this,” she whispers. “No one could ever take your heart away, if I have it. No one could crush it and keep you from me forever.” She kisses the tip of Emma’s nose and doesn’t seem to notice when Emma recoils. “I would never let you go.”

 

She won’t beg. She doesn’t cower before nobles or kings or men, and she won’t start now, even though whatever heart is still inside her is shattering with every moment Regina holds her heart. She’d wanted Regina to want her, had spent two weeks hating herself for not being enough, but not like this. Never like this. “Please,” she whispers, and it’s not a plea, because she doesn’t beg. She’d never be brought to her knees by this twisted version of Regina. It’s not begging. “Please let me go.” Not. Begging.

 

She doesn’t cry, either, but there are tears spilling down her face now and she can still feel Regina as a phantom inside her and this is all so wrong, so fucked up beyond imagination, and she loathes her own naiveté at trusting Regina in the first place. “I hate you,” she mumbles, and she doesn’t know whom she’s talking to anymore.

 

Regina’s eyes widen, not privy to the same clarity as Emma, and she squeezes the heart again unconsciously as she gapes at Emma. Agony rips through Emma and she drops to the ground, _please-no-please-Regina_ a litany that she doesn’t know if she’s chanting aloud or if it’s rattling around in her head, and she rocks backward against a tree, slamming her head against it to distract from the pain in her chest.

 

The figure that bends down in front of her is blurred through her tears and she wipes at them angrily, blinks them away until she can stare at Regina again as the other girl crouches in front of her. There’s the same wetness mirrored in her eyes and she’s weeping as she pushes Emma’s heart back into her chest and sags to the ground in front of her, and she’s sobbing _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t know why- I shouldn’t have- I’m so sorry, oh god, Emma, what’s happening to me?_ And then Emma’s throwing up all over Regina’s terrible outfit and Regina is just staring and pleading with her and letting her hands get covered in Emma’s lunch without moving them away.

 

And Emma scoots back until she’s flat against the trunk of the tree and she doesn’t cry anymore. She’s not going to cry again, so instead she watches with blank eyes as Regina huddles into a ball and sobs and Emma–

 

Emma just watches.  


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The flashbacks from Quite A Common Fairy take place sometime near the end of this chapter (as you will see p obviously, lol). The one downside from seeing all this exclusively from Emma's perspective is that we miss vital details that the show has given us from Regina's! But the rest of Part I won't be based on flashbacks (unless the show suddenly gives us some of the bb!queen over the next few episodes and I squeeze it in), so we've got a while before we have to worry about that again. 
> 
> Oh, and I rewatched the flashbacks from QaCF for this and I have to say that Rumple's "roast swan" bit at the beginning would be even more delightful in this canon, when he's taunting Regina and she knows exactly what he's talking about. (8
> 
> I'm trying to update weekly, but there might be a longer gap over the next two weeks. Hopefully I'll be able to get at least one chapter out. Enjoy!

She’s so furious that she storms out of camp, packs up Beetle and runs, ignoring the calls of her men and Little John’s hand on her shoulder as she collects her gear. She’s so unnerved that she rides for hours until forest begins to turn to plains and Beetle is slipping up from exhaustion. She’s so– She’s…

 

She just wants to ride.

 

Whatever had gone on with Regina while she’d been gone, it had thoroughly made a disaster of them both. And Emma doesn’t _care_ , doesn’t want to care about Regina right now or worry about her or do anything other than fume at being caught in the crossfire. Regina’s careening toward some kind of dark magic, struggling for power in a life where she’s been stripped of it all, and Emma had been fool enough to engage her regardless.

 

No more. It had been a colossal mistake to ever try and connect with Regina, and she’s best off forgetting her altogether.

 

She yanks on Beetle’s reins without noticing and he stops abruptly mid-gallop, sending her flying off of him and landing seat-first on the dusty ground with a yelp. “Beetle!” He nuzzles her reproachfully and she sits up, scowling at herself. “Fine. You can have a break.”

 

She decides to rest for the night, stretched out across her sleeping pad, and follows patterns in the stars instead of sleeping. Last time she’d slept mid-journey Regina had been there, and she doesn’t want to duplicate that experience. She isn’t even sure it had only been a dream, and she has no idea if Regina might be watching again.

 

When she does finally succumb to sleep, she dreams of Regina, indistinct impressions of soft hands and dark eyes and playful whispers, and she wakes up wet-eyed and shaking.

 

She’d first been so taken with Regina because she’d seen something in her that had resonated within Emma. Trapped in a world where neither of them had belonged, a craving for something real that they’d never been able to find. Emma had sought out her own worth in the Merry Men and had found a near facsimile. Regina had…

 

Regina has found it in darkness, and only after Emma had volunteered herself in its place. She wipes at her eyes, furious again, this time at her own stupid vulnerability. She should never have trusted Regina. Should never have thought that they might be able to offer each other what they’d needed. And now they’re both broken and Emma wants nothing more than to remain as far from Regina as possible, holding together the shattered pieces of herself until she can strengthen them enough to heal.

 

She straightens, glaring out into the emptiness that stretches out in front of her and the lights of a village in the distance. “Come on, Beetle. Let’s go make some rich guys miserable.”

 

* * *

She returns home a month later and steals Will’s flask at the fire when he asks her where she’s been. “Does it matter?”

 

He frowns for a minute, words she knows she isn’t going to like on the tip of his tongue before he bites them back. “Just as long as you’ve been doing the good work,” he returns, and she shrugs moodily and tips back the flask to swallow the last droplets of ale in it.

 

“I’m sorry to say that the Merry Men have lost their drive without their leader,” Alan-a-Dale says, joining them at the fire. “We’ve had only two raids since you left. And neither was all that successful.”

 

Emma glances around at the men. Most have left the fire, though they still glance back at her and murmur to each other. “I’m not a leader.” They don’t seem particularly unfocused now, other than the idle curiosity pointed toward her, and she’d only gotten grunts of greeting from most of them when she’d arrived. “Someone else could have worn a white cloak if they needed Swan Hood around.”

 

Alan-a-Dale smiles at her, his eyes twinkling with supercilious amusement. “Do you truly think that’s all you are to them, Swan? You’ve spearheaded every successful mission we’ve undertaken in over a year, you’ve chosen how we share our profits and with whom, and you’ve been a leader for as long as you’ve been Swan Hood. You’re the one we all answer to now, like it or not, and your absence is always felt.”

 

She feels her cheeks warm in the heat of the fire. “I’m just a kid.” She doesn’t want new responsibility over her men, not even when it’s just Will and Alan watching her as though she has all the answers. It’s Little John they follow, not a teenaged girl who Little John chooses to follow, and Alan has it all wrong.

 

He opens his mouth to respond, but then from behind them comes a rumble of, “Not to them,” and Little John claps her on the back. “Welcome back.”

 

She manages a smile, just for him. “Thanks.” A thought occurs to her. “Hey, want to set up an ambush on the king’s road tonight? It’s still early.” It’s disorganized and spontaneous and the kind of raid she’d usually drag just one of her men along for and not endanger anyone else; but there’s a low murmur of excitement in the air, a feeling as though anything might be possible, and suddenly there’s a surge of energy through the group and a dozen men following her expectantly.

 

“Oh, okay,” she says, a little bemused at the number of volunteers. She might not be a leader, but they _have_ been bored without her.

 

“Here’s how this is going to go.” Beetle’s exhausted so she climbs onto one of the horses they’d stolen from James last year and claps a hand against its flank, turning smartly to face her men. “I’m going to ride ahead down the road toward George’s kingdom and scout out a carriage. We see one, I’ll come back for you all, and we’ll storm it as a group. Let them see our numbers.” She grins, feeling old exhilaration returning for the first time since that day in the woods with Regina. “Let’s show them what the Merry Men are made of.”

 

There’s a raucous sort of cheer that she’s almost certain Will’s started and Alan begins a song and then they’re all riding out of the forest toward the main road, a dozen Merry Men and their reluctant leader, and Emma throws her cloak around her with a flourish and rides as fast as her horse can manage.

 

She’s felt so heavy for so long, weighed down by regrets and affection and sadness for a girl who’d betrayed that affection that she’s forgotten how good it feels to be surrounded by allies, to know that she’s about to find some pompous noble and humble him as he deserves. She wonders if the Merry Men have been keeping tabs on the local poor who might be desperate for some food, who’ve counted on them until now, and for a moment she feels a pang of regret. She can’t afford to run away again, not when all these people are counting on her to look out for them.

 

In the distance, she can make out the silhouette of a carriage idling on the road and she allows herself a quick, satisfied smile. _Right where I want him_. It had been easier than she’d thought, closer than she’d expected, and she hesitates, taking in the scene. She’s got a dozen men riding toward her right now, and there’s no reason to stop them without further inspection. There’s no one visible in the woods, no secret archers or hidden knights, and she pulls out her own bow to fire a warning shot at the carriage.

 

There’s a yelp from the driver’s seat and an armored man jumps up, squinting through the dim light at her. “Swan Hood!” He sounds more frustrated than surprised. “I warned her, I told her every day for the past week that this was Swan’s road and she’d be best off leaving it be day or night, but she insisted that she meditate here and I won’t risk my life for that woman!” He’s untangling the horse from the coach as he babbles, and Emma rides closer, raising her bow menacingly. “I’m going, I’m going!” he says, panicked, and he’s riding away from her as quickly as he can, leaving the carriage alone in the road and Emma lowering her bow, mystified.

 

She’s still smiling- _what the hell just happened?_ \- when she catches sight of the banner on the side of the carriage, Leopold’s square sigil sharply defined in the light of the moon. “No. No, no, no,” she chants to herself, because it’s too soon, she hadn’t been prepared for this, and there are a dozen men waiting to raid this carriage that almost certainly belongs to the last person she wants to see right now and definitely not in front of a group. “Absolutely not.”

 

And she has no choice but to pull out her knife and hold it loosely in her grasp as she ascends the steps to the carriage door.

 

Regina is dressed in simple white clothes again, a gown that’s as delicate and fragile as she’d once been. She’s shivering in the cold of the night but she doesn’t wear the cloak hanging beside the window, and Emma has to swallow back the urge to give her her own. There’s no need for gallantry with the woman who’d kissed her and tried to command her an instant later.

 

She glances up only briefly before she averts her eyes, staring at the bag on the seat opposite her as Emma’s eyes bore holes into her. “What the hell are you doing here,” Emma says, and she gets no response other than Regina’s eyes on the seat. She reaches for the bag, yanking it open to pull out its contents. “I don’t know what you think about what we…what happened, but I don’t want to see you ever-“

 

She stops midsentence, staring at the item in her hand. King George’s crown jewels twinkle back at her, shining against the gold of the crown itself and heavy enough to be the real thing.

 

“I know you wanted it,” Regina murmurs, her voice shaky and low. “It’s-“

 

“What?” Emma demands, eyeing the prize with chagrin. “You _stole_ for me?” She watches with no satisfaction as Regina flinches at the word, her noble sensibilities offended. “Is this some kind of apology? Are you trying to buy me back?” She’s alarmed to discover that her heart is pounding and there’s enough heat spreading through her to indicates that it might just be successful.

 

“No?” It’s more of a question than a denial, a desperately uncertain inquiry. “Is it-“ Regina tilts her head to one side, studying the myriad of emotions battling for purchase on Emma’s face. “Is it working?”

 

Anger wins out in the end, as it always does. “Do you think it’s that fucking easy?” Emma clenches her fists around the crown. “Do you think you can- can _take out my heart_ and then give me a bribe and I’ll be better? Do you have any idea what you did to me?” And oh god, the tears are escaping right in front of Regina, sliding down her flushed cheeks and she’s so _angry_ and so _devastated_ and Regina’s eyes are glued to hers and the darkness is kept at bay by sorrow of her own. “I trusted you! I showed you my face! I told you my name! Most of my men don’t even know that!”

 

Regina’s head sags, her hands squeezing the sides of her seat so tightly that they’re turning white. “I know. I never meant for you to…” she starts helplessly before her voice trails off. “I don’t know what else I can give you.”

 

A wildness overtakes her, a burning desire for Regina to feel as exposed, as humiliated as she had. “How about your dress?” she says, and tucks away the knife in her hand and crosses her arms over her cloak. “How much is that worth?”

 

Regina’s eyes widen. “Emma-“

 

“ _Swan Hood_ ,” she corrects her, and everything about this feels wrong, feels bitter and petty and wrong, but Regina is nodding slowly and her eyes are settling into cold blankness as she stands.

 

“This is what you want from me.” She doesn’t sound surprised, and maybe she’s angry but it’s nowhere near the fire in Emma’s eyes. “I suppose it’s only fitting.” She turns, abrupt and regal, and reaches around to her back to unbutton the top buttons of her dress.

 

She thinks she should have felt arousal at this submissive Regina, that she should be furious still and gloating and enjoying her victory here, but it takes only one button before weariness and shame are settling over her. She doesn’t want to do this. She doesn’t want to hurt Regina like she’d been hurt. “Stop it,” she murmurs, reaching out to fasten the button again. “Forget it, okay? I don’t…I don’t want you to do this.”

 

She doesn’t want to play these games with Regina, who’d never been a game to her, and the relief on Regina’s face when Regina’s turning to stand just opposite her, Emma’s arms still around her neck to reach the clasps of the dress, is enough to make her feel sick. “I just want to know why,” she whispers. “Why wasn’t I good enough for you? What does magic have to offer that I couldn’t-“

 

“I was trying to bring Daniel back to life,” Regina says, and Emma hadn’t thought that it could get worse but somehow it has and she drops her hands from the queen in an instant. Regina smiles, even though it makes her look vaguely ill. “Magic was supposed to give me happiness. To give me Daniel.” Emma takes a step back. “And when it failed, I just…lost control.” Regina sighs, looking away from Emma. “I never meant to hurt you.”

 

“I’m not hurt,” Emma lies stubbornly, and Regina cocks her head knowingly and remains silent. Enough remains between them, unsaid, and Emma blurts out, “But it failed you. Magic failed you. And you still cling to it.”

 

Slim shoulders shrug. “I have nothing else.”

 

“You could have had me.” The words escape in a mumble, and Regina looks so sorrowful when she hears them that Emma can’t watch her anymore.

 

The queen’s voice is just as hushed as hers, and Emma isn’t imagining the hope that laces it. “Could I still?”

 

It’s patently unfair for Regina to ask that of her now, to finally accept her now that she has nothing else and that she’s betrayed Emma’s trust so deeply. It’s awful and selfish and Emma’s so tempted that it takes all the willpower she has to sharply shake her head and turn away. “Of course,” Regina murmurs, and she sounds so sad that Emma has to move back to the open door of the carriage to breathe in fresh air. “What do we do now?” Regina asks, her voice small.

 

From the doorway, Emma can see the shadows of her men’s horses coming closer. “We live our lives,” she says firmly. “Alone. No, apart,” she hurries to correct herself. “Apart.”

 

“I see.” There’s a distance between them, insurmountable by their own making, and Emma hates the regret that threatens to overwhelm her, the sorrow and the second-guessing when Regina is so close now and her walls aren’t nearly as high as she’d meant to build them again. “Maybe we could-“ she starts, wheeling around.

 

The carriage is empty, the only sign of Regina’s prior presence King George’s crown on the seat where Emma had left it.

 

* * *

She waits nearly a month before she puts away her cloak and visits a smith near the edge of King George’s kingdom whom they’ve worked with before. The towns farthest from the castle have suffered the most from George’s lack of funding, extra taxation and an abundance of soldiers in the area, and it seems only fair to go to them with a product of their king’s vanity.

 

This smith gapes at the mess she’s made of the crown- hitting it again and again with a mallet until it’s misshapen and hopefully hardly recognizable. “I can remove the gems immediately, but I don’t have the tools to work with gold. If you can stay a night or two for me to obtain them before I melt it down and reshape it, I can give it to you as a solid gold bar.”

 

“Sounds good.” She leans back in her chair, patient to wait, and he’s barely out of the room when his apprentice leans forward and whispers, “Was that a _crown_?”

 

She gives him a dirty look. He looks to be around fifteen, not much younger than her but with an overeager face that makes him out to be more of a child than an adult. “Stay out of my business, kid.”

 

He grins, undeterred. “It’s Quinn. My father was a merchant before he died. I know royal jewels when I see them.”

 

“They’re mine,” she lies easily. “My mother was a princess.”

 

He eyes her. “You don’t look much like a princess.”

 

“You don’t look much like a king’s fool, but we’re all full of surprises,” she retorts, rolling her eyes. She doesn’t have time for apprentices in a smith’s shop, not when King George is certainly already hunting the land for his last great riches.

 

The kid laughs, pushing floppy hair from his eyes. “You’re not from around here, are you? Your Highness,” he adds, but it’s belligerent and amused. “Where’d you get the crown?”

 

“Don’t you know better than to ask a mysterious stranger too many questions?” Emma snaps wearily.

 

Quinn shrugs. “Don’t you know that King George’s men have been riding through the kingdom for a month, searching for something? They’ve gone to all the goldsmiths and jewel merchants and harassed their families in their homes. It’s only a matter of time before they head to the lowly blacksmith.” Knowing eyes bore into her. “My master isn’t a rich man. But as profitable as it is for him to help you, it won’t be enough to keep him safe. You’re putting him in a lot of danger, coming here.”

 

And there’s the guilt, back in earnest as she contemplates his words. He’s right. She’d been thinking in terms of giving money back to the villagers, the ultimate plan to infuriate King George, but instead she’s put the people at risk by a ruthless king and endangered the ones she’d meant to help. _Reckless teenager_ , she reminds herself, and it’s not as easy to shrug it off today. “What am I supposed to do?” she murmurs.

 

Quinn flashes her a smile, though she’d been talking more to herself than him. “The smith has a sister who’s been fostering me during my apprenticeship,” he says. “Come stay with us for a day or two. No one will know you’re here, and you can keep your gems until the knights leave the area.”

 

She frowns, moving the bag of gems from the crown from hand to hand as she contemplates the offer. She’d rather stay in the woods, but if what Quinn says is true then there will be soldiers in the area and she’ll arouse much more suspicion if they find her there. And she can’t go far if the smith is in danger.

 

She sighs. She’ll stay with him for the night, and then she’ll leave for King Midas’s kingdom, where no one thinks twice about a stranger with excessive gold. “Thanks.”

 

* * *

She’s set up with a family that reminds her a little too much of some of the homes she’d been foisted on in her adolescence. Four children under thirteen and not nearly enough food, a hapless mother caring for them and juggling some kind of herbal remedy business from her home, and Quinn, who sits with the kids and bathes them and puts them to bed with stories. His irritating confidence and carelessness is what draws the rest of his foster family in, what has all the children scurrying to listen to him as Emma sits on the side and surreptitiously pours her soup back into the serving bowl. She doesn’t need this family’s last scraps of food, not when Beetle’s bags are holding enough dried meat for a day and her bow can easily procure her enough for many days to come.

 

“They want you to eat,” Quinn mutters in her ear as he sets out another sleeping pad for her in the room he shares with two of the older boys. “Let them give you what they have. It makes them happy to be able to share.”

 

“You do remember why I’m here, right?” She stretches out on the pad, propping up beside her the canteen where she’s slid her bag of gems. “I don’t need any help.”

 

“It’s not about you,” Quinn says, rolling over to face the wall. “And it’s not about those two emeralds you slipped into Aleida’s apron, either.” He sighs. “I thought _you_ would understand.”

 

“Me? Why me?” But they’re both distracted by loud voices outside, their hostess’s feet padding to the door as someone begins to bang heavily on the door.

 

Emma’s knife is in her grip in an instant, the blade still tucked into her sleeve, and she sits up, exchanging a worried glance with Quinn. “Stay here, kid,” she orders, and his mouth falls open with outrage.

 

“I’m not a kid! I can-“

 

“You can nothing. Stay _here_ ,” she hisses again, climbing to her feet and slipping out the bedroom door.

 

 The whole house is one large room with only the two bedrooms enclosed, and when she steps out into the main room she has to slip behind the large stove and hide the canteen inside before the visitors see her.

 

They’re clad in the armor of King George’s knights, one small and unpleasant-looking and the one behind him looming enormous in the tiny home. And- her heart sinks- he’s holding Aleida’s apron and the smaller knight is sneering down at the terrified woman as he shoves the emeralds in her face. “Where did you get these?” he demands.

 

Aleida shakes her head. “I’ve never seen them before in my life! I don’t know how they got there!” She’s white-faced and terrified, glancing wildly from knight to knight as though one might rescue her from the other, and the larger knight shakes his head slowly. He looks familiar, actually, maybe one of James’s friends, and Emma isn’t sure if that’s a good thing or bad.

 

The smaller knight moves closer, touching a finger to her pulse point warningly. “I think you’re lying,” he growls out, pressing it in as the knight behind him shifts uncomfortably.

 

Emma crosses the room in eight long steps, knocking the knight’s hand aside with her free hand. “No, she isn’t,” she snaps, pushing Aleida behind her. The woman stutters, bewildered, and Emma rises to her full (admittedly unimpressive) height and tightens her grip on her knife. “I put them there.”

 

“Oh, _shit_ ,” says a low voice from the doorway, and she recognizes Quinn without looking back.

 

She grits her teeth, already irritated, and glares at the knight. “I left them there as a gift for this woman’s hospitality. They were mine.” She’s dressed in cheap leather, nothing quite as richly designed as Regina’s clothing, and she can see the dubiousness in their eyes as she says it.

 

The little knight swaggers forward, splaying a hand across her stomach and leering when her eyes narrow in response. She doesn’t move, acutely aware that shoving him away will cause new trouble for all of them. “Is that so?”

 

She steps forward, partly out of defiance, partly because she can easily pilfer his sword straight from its hilt at this distance. “I received them as a gift, too,” she offers, and the larger knight in the back snorts dubiously.

 

The smaller knight’s breath is stale like raw fish and ale. “From a lover?” he asks, his hand dipping lower against her, and she smiles sweetly back, her fingers drawing out her knife.

 

“From my queen,” she says truthfully and she shivers at the _my_ that isn’t a _my_ at all and watches his face darken.

 

“Liar,” he growls and shoves her against the wall, one hand around her throat while the other yanks at her trousers, and two things abruptly happen.

 

She draws her knife and stabs it into his thigh so quickly that he doesn’t even have time to howl before the other knight slams a powerful fist into the top of his companion’s armor, the two of them collectively sending him into a slump on the ground. They stare at each other for a moment, the knight studying her impassively and Emma tense and ready for another fight, and Emma tucks her hair behind her ears and says, “You should probably go get him some help.”

 

“If you think he’s worth it.” She might be imagining the faint glint of amusement in the knight’s eye as he turns. But she doesn’t think so.

 

* * *

She’s retrieving her canteen and heading for the door when Quinn grabs her by the arm. “Wait,” he says, sounding almost desperate. “What about your gold?”

 

“Your brother can keep it.” She looks at Aleida, who’s holding onto her apron and staring at the emeralds as though she’s never seen anything like them before. It makes something rattle loose in Emma’s stomach and flip around and Quinn had been right, this feeling isn’t about emeralds or Aleida as much as it’s about the way Aleida’s face is making her warm. She swallows. “Tell him to give it to someone who needs it. I’d rather be on my way before that knight returns.”

 

“Of course.” The woman smiles at her and Emma remembers a few of the guardians she’d been passed off to, the ones who hadn’t been cruel and had tried to care for her in ways that they never had the means to pull off. “We are so very grateful.”

 

Emma smiles politely and excuses herself, making her way along the dark road toward the edge of the forest where she’d left Beetle in a stable. She focuses on dodging the light and the soldiers wandering the streets. She doesn’t want another confrontation, not with these men who are the outcasts and the least notable of King George’s knights, and she doesn’t trust herself not to cause another fight. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that she wears a hood when she’s fighting, when she’s treated like a foe instead of a victim, and that without it too many people see the latter.

 

She thinks of Regina for the first time in nearly an hour- it might be a record- and sighs, licking suddenly dry lips. Regina had been reduced to a possession long ago, handed off to a king and dressed in pretty clothes like a valued doll. And Emma doesn’t know what she’d have done if she couldn’t pull out her knife and fight back against those who seek to possess her. Maybe that’s all Regina’s done by learning magic. Maybe this is her knife, her bow, her cloak against the world.

 

She thinks she might understand Regina even better now. But then she remembers her heart in Regina’s hand, the darkness in her eyes as Emma obeys her helplessly, and understanding isn’t going to be enough. Not for them. Not on this road that Regina’s chosen to travel.

 

She saddles Beetle and shoves her canteen in his saddlebag. Regina is beyond her now, and no gold or gems can change that. She’d had…she’d had a friend, but she’s lost her now, and it’s time to accept it. It’s been two months. It’s time.

 

“Are you going back to them?” says a voice from behind her, and she spins around, her bow ready in her hand in an instant as her eyes bore through the darkness.

 

Quinn stands at the other end of the stables, his hand resting against the side of another horse. His eyes are bright, still too knowing, too confident, and she’s abruptly reminded of another kid who’d run after a thief with no idea what she’d been doing. “To the Merry Men,” he clarifies, and she gapes at him. He smirks. “What, you think I couldn’t figure that one out? Are you his lover or something?”

 

She just stares for a minute. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He laughs disbelievingly and she amends, “You’re not coming anywhere with me.”

 

He doesn’t stop smirking. Smug little brat. “I’m good with horses. You know I know my loot. I can be a Merry Man.”

 

She shakes her head, half in denial, half in disbelief. “You’re just a kid.”

 

“Oh, and you’re so much older than me? How old were you when you started working with them?”

 

“Older than you!” She glares at him. “Look, you can’t just run off and become a thief because you have some overblown idea of how much _fun_ it’ll be. That’s what Neverland is for, kid. And you’re probably getting too old for Neverland.”

 

He’s shifting from side to side, his smile more and more strained by each passing moment as she shakes her head again. He doesn’t look quite as confident anymore when he takes a deep breath. “I don’t- it’s not about fun. I don’t have anything here.”

 

“No, _I_ didn’t have anything,” she shoots back. “I was a fourteen-year-old orphan with no future and no family and nothing to live for other than begging off strangers in the street. I…I found the Merry Men because I was alone and living with a bunch of thieves in the woods was better than dying in a gutter in the rain.” He’s listening, his jaw clenched with stubborn denial, and she pushes forward. “You have Aleida’s family and an apprenticeship and a future ahead of you. You have people who _need_ you.”

 

Quinn shakes his head. “You’re wrong. No one needs me. I could be replaced with another kid in five minutes and no one would even remember I’d existed.” He’s so small, barely even her height right now. Underfed and determined and certain that she’s his ticket out of this village. She wonders if this is how Little John had looked at her. “I want to help people like me. I want to be free.”

 

His eyes are earnest and he’s so small and he wants to help people and isn’t angry at the world yet and Emma leans against Beetle and sighs and wishes she didn’t still feel so warm from Aleida’s smile. “You betray the Men and I kill you,” she says flatly, and digs into her pack to find a dark cloak that she rarely wears. Maybe she’ll swap it for her usual after Quinn’s been around for a few days and she’s ready to take him into the camp. If he lasts that long at all.

 

* * *

They stop at a tavern near the border of Leopold’s kingdom because Emma sees James’s horse hitched outside it. “Why _do_ the Merry Men hate King George so much more than the other kings?” Quinn wants to know. “My last guardian always said that it was because of Swan Hood that our kingdom was so poor.”

 

“It’s because of King George and his idiot son that your kingdom is poor,” Emma mutters, pushing open the doors of the tavern. “He spoils him and they’ve bankrupted the kingdom together.”

 

James is sitting at a table at the far end of the room, four knights seated around him and one of the serving wenches on his lap. He’s got his sword lying across the table and he’s tracing the intricate etchings along one side as he talks to the girl, one hand casually flung around her waist. Emma rolls her eyes and turns back to her own charge, herding him along to a table closer to the door. “Let’s get you something to eat. If you’re going to be one of us, you need to be having more than just soup.” She pokes him. “You’re kind of scrawny.”

 

He scowls, puffing out his chest a little like he thinks it might impress her. “I’m quick and I’m stealthy.”

 

“Like a pickpocket, not an outlaw.” She’d done both and found that the latter feeds much better.

 

Quinn sulks but he eats the meat she orders for him so quickly that she’s pretty sure he’ll have an upset stomach the minute they get back on their horses. Good. The kid can’t get everything he wants with a smart mouth and an overblown sense of self.

 

Speaking of…

 

James is still talking about his sword, and now his knights are joining in, telling over the tale of some vanquished monster that she’s almost certain had actually been an oversized stag. _Seriously_.

 

Quinn nudges her and she ignores him, feeling an uncomfortable tingle spreading across her shoulders and face. It’s almost as though she’s being watched, and she glances around but sees no eyes on her. “Why are you stalking Prince James?” he asks, loudly enough that now they get a few sidelong glances.

 

“Shut your mouth,” she warns him and lifts her glass between her hands again, swallowing down the burning liquor. “If you get me into a bar brawl…”

 

Her voice trails off and she frowns. The odd tingly sensation is strengthening, tickling at her back and her temples now. The tavern door opens behind them and she wiggles her shoulders, glancing back at the door to see if there’s a breeze blowing against her back. 

 

Instead she sees Regina framed in the doorway, her eyes tired and resigned as she gazes at Emma.

 

She should probably ignore her, because she’d declared whatever had been between them over and it had been the _right_ decision, she _knows_ that, but instead she’s forcefully squashing a smile and raising her glass in invitation and nodding at the empty spot on the bench beside her so the queen can come join her.

 

“Who is that?” Quinn whispers, and Regina regards him coolly as she moves to stand behind Emma.

 

“I’m not staying,” she says curtly. “I came here to…to see something. I saw it. I’m done.” She moves to leave but Emma catches her wrist. It’s stiff in her grasp and Regina still looks so weary, as resigned to Emma and regretful as she’d been the last time they’d met.

 

“Funny coincidence that I’m here, too,” she murmurs. It’s been a month and seeing Regina again is like breathing for the first time since, even when the air is hot and stale and burns when it hits her lungs. She doesn’t know what she’s asking.

 

But somehow, Regina does, and Emma still doesn’t know what the question is. “No.” She smiles, acid-sour and pointed at no one but herself. “No, I was fairly certain you’d be here.” There’s a weight to her answer that she doesn’t explain. “I can’t imagine how it could have been anyone else.”

 

“What are you talking–“ Regina disappears in a puff of purple smoke and Quinn’s jaw falls open as Emma’s snaps shut.

 

“Who _was_ that?” he repeats when he can speak again, and Emma smiles briefly and thinks about lying.

 

“My queen, Quinn,” she says instead. “That was my queen.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really have been working on this for WEEKS. Promise. I accidentally started another WIP though (how does one accidentally start a WIP? somehow I managed) and updates might come a little more slowly for this fic. This wound up being half the chapter it was supposed to, so we'll probably be in this time period/Part I for another three chapters or so before we fast-forward a few years. Enjoy!

“Hold your bow closer to you. _No_ , not like that. Are you trying to take out your own eye?” She steadies Quinn’s bow and he scowls at her. She rolls her eyes. “C’mon, stop pouting. I’m helping you, okay?”

 

“I want an axe,” he says sulkily, rearranging his bow. He’s not bad at this, just impatient and too focused on the target to pay attention to his bow.

 

She eyes him with skepticism. “When I can believe that you can wield axe without falling over from the weight of it, then you can have one. For now, keep eating and keep up your target practice. It’ll strengthen those scrawny little muscles more, okay?” She pokes his bicep, laughing when he yanks it away. “Now. You work on this, I’m going to go find something quick to eat.”

 

She’d seen a patch of promising-looking berries further back in the brush and she traces their steps back, snickering to herself at the sound of an arrow most definitely _not_ hitting the target they’d set up and Quinn’s low curse in response.

 

He needs this. He’s still overconfident and reckless and driven by a cause, bright-eyed and enthusiastic in all the ways she can remember possessing her when she’d been fifteen, and she’d had to pull him away from the Merry Men before they’d gotten too annoyed with him and started more than just good-natured ribbing. She’s going to teach him to carry his weight and learn his own strengths, and maybe eventually he’ll be ready to properly join the Merry Men.

 

It had taken her months before she’d been able to carry a proper sword when she’d first come to camp, and by then she’d fallen in love with the intricacies of archery. Her bow had taught her patience, taught her accuracy and caution and an art she’d never thought she could master before then. And she’d been a natural from the start, enough to give Little John pause when he’d tried to shrug off her desire to join the Merry Men. Quinn is…determined.

 

Maybe that’s all he’ll need, in the end. It’s gotten him this far.

 

She hears his voice, muffled through the trees, and perks up. “Emma?” he’s calling. “Um…you might want to come here?” He sounds unsure, a twinge of anxiety in his voice, and she frowns and leaves the berries. “Emma!” he calls again, and she hurries through the brush back to him.

 

He’s standing opposite the target, his hands empty and his eyes fierce and a little panicked, and Regina is lounging against the tree where they’d left the target. Quinn’s weapon is in her hands and she’s examining it with interest, tracing the curve of the wood along the belly of the bow as she awaits Emma.

 

Emma tenses. “Get back to camp, Quinn.”

 

“But I–“

 

“Go!” she orders, her eyes on Regina, and Quinn scampers.

 

She sighs, running her tongue over dry lips. “Give me the kid’s bow back.”

 

“He was pointing it at me,” Regina says, pulling on the string. “I’ve never used one of these before. I suppose a fireball will do me more good than a piece of wood, though.” She looks up. Her eyes are still an impossible mix of vibrant fire and the dangerous power behind them, and Emma takes a step forward. She isn’t sure if she’s attracted or protective and she doesn’t know if it matters either way.

 

“You shouldn’t be here,” she finally manages.

 

Regina smiles at her, though it never moves past her mouth. “I want to hire you, actually, for your rather unique services. I can pay well enough to feed a small village for a month.” Two necklaces appear in her palm and a golden men’s ring above it. “How about it?”

 

“You want to hire me?” She blinks, a blush spreading across her back and up to her face. “This isn’t about…um… _us_ , is it? Is this some kind of proposition?”

 

“What?” Regina’s eyes go wide as she processes the question. “You mean a personal companion?” She’s suddenly just as red as Emma and she focuses on the bow again, refusing to make eye contact with her as the regal airs fade away with embarrassment. “No! No, that’s not what I meant! I don’t want– I mean, I never thought that– I want you to steal for me!” she finally blurts out, moving forward to drop the jewels into Emma’s hand.

 

“ _Oh_.” She can’t believe she’d gone straight to thoughts of _servicing_ Regina, and she flushes even harder and stares down and does not think about how the idea of it sends a certain thrill through her. Regina’s hand is still outstretched over hers, smooth skin darker against her own pale palm, and she almost reaches up to take it. “Can’t you just use your magic to take whatever you want?” She notices that the necklaces aren’t Regina’s style at all, and she thinks she’d seen a similar one on Snow White at the masquerade ball. And up close, the ring is clearly the signet ring of a king.

 

Regina looks up again, her face grim. “Not this time,” she allows. “Where I want to go…magic will only alert him to our presence. I need a true thief to help me here. And you’re the best I know.”

 

She grins, forcing herself to forget the tension between them. “I’m the only you know.”

 

“Indeed you are.” Regina’s hand grazes her own before it retreats and they both shiver and look down. “Will you do it?”

 

“Where are we going?” She frowns. “What are we stealing? Why do I have the feeling that I’m not going to survive this one?”

 

“You’ll be fine. I’m not going to let you get hurt.” But Regina looks uneasy as she says it, as though she isn’t entirely sure that she can enforce that. “We’re going to the Dark One’s castle. He’s taken…something of mine.”

 

“You going to tell me what?”

 

“No.”

 

“Regina.”

 

The queen sighs. “ _Please_ , Emma. I don’t have anywhere else to go.” She’s pale, her face drawn and her eyes haunted, and Emma leans in to study her.

 

Her hair is limp, bound back simply instead of those elaborate waves they’d been when they’d last spoken. Her eyes are dark with bags below them, and when she looks at Emma, it’s with pleading eyes that are close to shattering. She looks…she looks _terrified_ , and Emma swallows and knows what she’s going to say before she finds the words. “Fine. Let’s do this.”

 

Regina exhales and moves closer, seizing Emma’s hands in her own. “Thank you,” she murmurs. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

 

“No, I don’t think you will.” But she allows the contact, the warmth of Regina’s hands around hers, and she’s about to speak when she senses eyes in the forest behind them. _Wait_ , she mouths, swinging around with her bow out in an instant, arrow pointed at the figure in the trees. “Show yourself!” she snaps out.

 

There’s nothing, and beside her she hears the sizzle of flames. Regina is holding a _ball of fire_ as though it’s a weapon, eyes dark and wary. “Show yourself!” she commands, and it comes out a hell of a lot more dangerous from the other girl.

 

“Okay! Okay!” She recognizes the voice and lets out an exasperated sigh as Quinn steps out from the trees. “Please don’t set me on fire.”

 

“What the hell are you doing, Quinn? I thought you were the Dark One!” she barks out, charging over to him to grab him by the neck and slam him against a tree. “I _told_ you to get back to camp!”

 

“Who is this boy?” Regina demands. “Have you picked up a shadow?”

 

“I was going to! I just wanted to make sure that you were okay!” he gasps. “You seemed really afraid of her.”

 

He glares at Regina and she stares back, unimpressed. “Emma isn’t afraid of me.”

 

“She seems like she is.” He scowls. “And you’re taking her to the Dark Castle? I don’t think so.” He’s brimming with all the righteous fury of youth, protective of her as though she isn’t perfectly capable of taking care of herself and he isn’t a kid who isn’t even strong enough to hold an axe.

 

Regina looks taken aback at even being questioned. “You’re going to tell _us_ what to do?”

 

“Quinn, shut up.” She releases him and gives him a shove. It’s not affectionate. Maybe a little. “Go back to camp and don’t talk about this to anyone.”

 

“I’m not going back to camp without you!” He straightens, cocky smirk back in place. “If you’re going on a suicide mission with _her_ , I’m coming too.”

 

“What are you, my squire? No, you’re not.” She doesn’t need an overconfident kid trailing her every move. Why had she ever brought him back here to begin with? And she’s not bringing him to the Dark One’s castle as a willing sacrifice, no matter how much he’s already making Regina’s eyebrow twitch in very satisfying ways. “You got a death wish?”

 

“I want to help,” he grumbles. “You haven’t let me go on a single raid since I got here. I don’t want to spend the next five years doing petty pickpocketing until you decide I’m ‘old enough’ to do the big stuff.” He tilts his head, narrowing his eyes at them. “I bet the rest of the Merry Men would be interested in knowing that you’re risking your life for a _royal_.”

 

Regina’s face darkens dangerously. “If you get in my way, I can get you _out_ of my way.” She’s waving her hands again, a purple light arcing out from her fingers to wrap around Quinn, and Emma steps between them hastily.

 

“Cut it out, both of you,” she orders. “Quinn, this isn’t a normal raid. We can’t afford to have someone with us, slowing us down.”

 

“I can keep up!” He has that look on his face, the one that gives her the uncomfortable feeling that he’ll jump onto a horse and follow them to the castle anyway, and for a moment she actually considers letting Regina take care of him. “You know I’m a better rider than you.”

 

“You’re _competent._ Don’t get too cocky about it.” She’s the better archer, anyway, and what good is a horse if you can’t fight back?

 

“Does this mean I’m coming?” He bounces on his heels, grinning as though he knows he’s already won.

 

She sighs. “Fine. You can ride with us, but you’re not going anywhere near the Dark Castle.” She fixes stern eyes on him. “I know you and I’m serious. This is your last chance. You listen to me or I leave you behind or have _her_ –“ She jerks a thumb at Regina. “Take care of you.”

 

“Deal.”

 

“No!” Regina says, outraged. “I’m not hiring you to bring along dead weight!”

 

“You won’t even tell me what I’m supposed to be stealing, so how about I make the decisions here?” She’s officially chosen the two most infuriating people she cares about to join her, and she rolls her eyes and leads them out of the clearing, already regretting it.

 

“Don’t worry, Your Majesty,” she hears Quinn mutter to Regina. “I won’t get in the way of your robbery date.”

 

“Did you not see what I can do with a fireball?” she snaps back, and Emma bites back her smirk and rolls her eyes instead.

 

* * *

Regina brings a horse of her own, a dark stallion as impressive as any of the royal horses they’ve stolen, and Quinn selects another stallion nearly as large. They glare at each other and their horses snort threateningly, two tiny riders atop their steeds, and Emma and Beetle plod on behind them. If horses could roll their eyes, Beetle would definitely have the same expression as she does.

 

“Your horse doesn’t look like he has much endurance,” Quinn notes, taking the lead. “Sure you don’t want to take one of ours?”

 

Regina’s mouth drops open with outrage. “How dare you! Rocinante is more than capable of outrunning your oversized pony.” She quickens her pace, catching up easily, and Emma hurries to catch up to them.

 

“ _Rocinante_?” she repeats. “That’s a mouthful.”

 

Regina raises her eyebrows, amusement glinting in them. “Beetle?”

 

“We can’t all be as pretentious as you when we name our horses. I like Beetle.”

 

“Of course you do.” But Regina allows an affectionate smile that leaves Emma chewing on her lip and playing with Beetle’s mane and studiously not looking up again.

 

Quinn snorts. “I thought you were much more impressive before I got to know you, Emma.” He rides ahead again and they both stare after him, bemused.

 

“He’s a child,” Regina says finally. “Smug and presumptuous.”

 

“Yeah, an asshole. Like a miniature Prince James.” She laughs as he charges forward again, half off course ahead of them. “Like a miniature me. You should have known me at fifteen.”

 

“I know you now. I can imagine.” But Regina’s eyes are sparkling with something far from malice. “Not too unlike how I was at fifteen, actually.”

 

“How were you at fifteen?” Emma asks curiously. She can’t imagine Regina before all this, before she’d been a queen and before sadness and darkness both had overtaken her. She would have been young, pampered, a kind soul unaware of what was to come, and she licks her lips, suddenly morose.

 

“I was riding around in men’s clothing and defying my mother in every way possible,” Regina says, and Emma’s so startled she laughs with delight.

 

“You weren’t!”

 

“I spent half my time being punished and the other half the time finding new reasons to invite punishment. My mother was certain I’d never marry.” She smiles, not without some bitterness. “Of course, she made certain that that happened.”

 

“I hope she’s happy,” Emma mutters. She’d gotten what she’d wanted, hadn’t she? And now Regina’s on a path to becoming just like her.

 

“I wouldn’t know.” Regina shrugs, and she’s struggling to look nonchalant but failing miserably. “She’s gone now.” Her lip quivers a tiny bit and the haunted look from earlier is back in full force, slowing her down as she rides and doesn’t turn back to Emma.

 

“What do you mean? What happened to her?” Regina shrugs again. Emma leans toward her and nearly topples off of Beetle. “What happened to her, Regina?”

 

Rocinante speeds up without warning and Regina’s riding ahead with Quinn before Emma can catch up, her eyes on the road in front of them and Beetle lagging behind again.

 

But she’d seen the guilt layered over the fear, the awareness that something had happened there that terrifies Regina as much as it eats at her, and she gallops forward until she’s side-by-side with Regina and Quinn once more. “You know, when I was ten, I lived with a miller’s family. He was a hard man, but he wasn’t cruel like the friend who’d handed me off to him. As long as I worked hard, I was fed and given a place to sleep and I was happy.”

 

Regina turns to her, a pained look on her face, and Emma waves it off. “It was fine. It was good. Then he died and his eldest son came home to take charge of the mill. He hated me, thought I was a waste of space, and so whenever I’d say anything he didn’t like– it’s possible I had a smart mouth,” she adds, and both Regina and Quinn snort. “He used to lock me in one of the grain closets for a day or so each time.”

 

“I would have killed him,” Regina says darkly. Quinn is silent for once, his eyes solemn and knowing. There are many millers in this realm, many adults looking for children for free labor and expecting nothing more than that. Emma doesn’t remember much affection, or anyone who’d see the little girl with dirty curls and defiance in her eyes and take her in as a daughter.

 

“I thought about killing him all the time,” she says. “Or dreamed of him dying instead and freeing me from that life. I was ten and I hated the world and I hated him most of all. Eventually, I ran away to the closest town and worked for a carpenter who was kind to me. But if I’d been trapped in that mill for much longer, I don’t think I would have lasted there too long without searching for anything- _anything_ \- that could make him go away.” She understands Regina’s attachment to magic in that way, understands whatever might have happened to her mother, and she’s only glad that she’d never been in a position to become so desperate and bitter for too long.

 

When she peeks at Regina, the queen is staring right back, and she offers her a tiny nod as Quinn groans, “You’re both so pathetic. Aren’t you supposed to be married to a king?” and takes the lead again.

 

They speed up their pace, hooves clip-clopping against the road as they drive forward. The Dark Castle is deep in the mountains beyond King Leopold and King George’s kingdoms, distant from most of the land that Emma’s grown up in. She’s been there on rare occasions but never too close to the Dark One’s castle itself. The ogres still roam free there, the towns remaining still ravaged by the Ogre Wars, and it’s not the place a thief travels to steal riches.

 

Emma doesn’t ask Regina about using her magic but Quinn says it on the first night, when he’s lying on his back on a thin sleeping pad a few feet away from where Regina’s lighting a fire for them. “Why can’t you just…poof us over there? Like you did in that tavern and in the woods?”

 

“Oh, was that you in the tavern?” Regina asks interestedly. “I thought Emma was being courted.”

 

Emma narrows her eyes at her. “No, you didn’t.” Quinn had looked even younger then, gangly and tiny like an adolescent. She’d felt like she’d been taking her little brother out to play, not like she’d been dining with an equal.

 

“No, I didn’t,” Regina agrees easily. She nods to Quinn. “I can’t bring us very close to the castle without being detected, and I don’t think I have enough training just yet to move us _and_ our horses across half the realm. So we do this the non-magical way.”

 

“Just yet?” Emma echoes, raising her eyebrows.

 

Regina tilts her head, staring into the flames before them. “Rumplestiltskin believes I’m the most powerful sorceress he’s ever seen.” There’s a smile twitching at her lips, a quiet pride in the statement, and Emma swallows and tries not to think about Regina weeping over the heart of a unicorn.

 

“And that’s good.” It’s more of a question than a comment, escaping her lips before she thinks better of it.

 

Regina’s smile fades in the firelight, becoming still and tense as though Emma’s personally offended her. “I suppose you have the right to judge me for it,” she allows, not without resentment.

 

Emma swallows. “I’m not _judging_ you. I’m just…curious.” But she’s on edge and Regina can see it, and they both fall silent, staring into the flames as Quinn grumbles about the rocky ground.

 

* * *

She sees Regina tossing and turning in her sleep, seeking out warmth where there is none as she shivers and groans out little whimpers. She looks so vulnerable like this, unguarded and soft without her power and regality to build a wall between them. She looks like she had at James’s birthday ball, where she’d held Emma’s hand and listened to her talk with cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling.

 

It hurts, seeing her like this and thinking of what could have been, and Emma rolls over and stares at Quinn instead.

 

She senses Regina getting closer, shifting in her sleep until she’s half off her own sleeping pad and nearly on Emma’s, and she bites her lip and doesn’t move away, not even when Regina’s next shift has her grumbling in her sleep, seeking out warmth and snuggling up against Emma’s side. “Are you even asleep?” she whispers, but Regina only nuzzles her neck in response.

 

She stays very still and lets one hand slide to cover Regina’s where it’s draped over her waist, and sleep comes at last moments later.

 

* * *

They ride through the second day with little discussion. Quinn and Regina fight for the lead position again, and Emma’s fairly certain that, had she and Beetle not been there to stubbornly establish a responsible pace, they’d both be far ahead with horses who’ve given up on riding anymore. “Rocinante would be fine,” Regina objects when she points that out. She strokes his mane with more affection than she’s shown toward anyone else this whole trip. “I would never push him more than he could handle.”

 

“I think you push everyone a little more than they can handle,” Emma says in response, passing her some dried meat from their rations.

 

Regina lips curl ever so slightly. “We have that in common, then.” Her fingers move to Emma’s shoulder, the same tenderness offered to her as she had her horse, and Emma’s horrified to discover that she melts in a single instant.

 

“Oh, shut up,” she says, shakier than she’d meant to, and she pushes away from Regina as the other girl’s eyes glint with smugness.

 

Regina had been gone when she’d woken up, out with the horses grooming Rocinante, and she’d shown no signs of knowing that she’d slept curled up against Emma for the bulk of the night. But she’s been more touchy-feely today, quick to talk to Emma without the tension that laces most of their encounters now. She wonders again if Regina had been awake last night, if she’d known that she hadn’t pushed her away.

 

Regardless, it changes nothing, and they ride on, Regina pulling ahead of Quinn permanently for the rest of the day like it had never been a contest. “She’s a queen,” he mutters to Emma. “She’s probably been trained to ride her whole life. And she has magic.”

 

“Yeah, yeah.” They stop riding at nightfall. They’re high enough in the mountains now that riding with the freezing night air in their face is perilous, and Emma starts a fire while Quinn settles the horses. Regina sits alone with a cloak wrapped around her, shivering and inspecting their remaining rations with distaste.

 

“I’m not going hunting, so it’s that or nothing, Your Majesty,” Emma informs her, rolling her eyes. Her own grey cloak is thin from years of use and she huddles by the fire, letting it warm her hands.

 

“This bread is hard as a rock.” Regina makes a face. “If it were safe for me to use my magic this close to the Dark Castle without being found, I’d conjure us up a feast.”

 

“Sounds convenient.” She doesn’t bother hiding the sarcasm in her tone, and Regina looks at her curiously.

 

“Why do you loathe magic so? I understand why you’d balk at…at taking a heart,” she says slowly, and they both stare determinedly at the fire instead of each other. “But magic isn’t dark in nature. It’s only a tool.”

 

“It’s a tool given only to a lucky few.” Emma remembers still, recalls the mocking laughter of the nobleman who had taken her in when she’d been four and five as he’d said it. _Magic, child. Magic found them what they truly wanted._ “It’s no different than any other riches. It corrupts, it picks and chooses who to help…” She wraps her cloak tighter. “I never had a fairy godmother, but I’m sure that Snow White does, doesn’t she?”

 

Regina barks out a bitter laugh. “Of course she does.” She clenches her fists around the edges of her cloak.

 

“And you never had one, either, did you?” They’d both needed one far more than a spoiled princess who has dozens of servants who would do anything for her. And yet, two little girls used and abused by the world had never qualified for good magic.

 

“Not quite,” Regina agrees, and it’s odd phrasing but she’s just as grim about it as Emma. “But now I have magic of my own. I don’t need a _fairy_ to rescue me. I’d thought…for a long time I’d thought that I hated magic, that magic was the reason why my mother had been so dark. But now I know. It’s not about the power, it’s about who wields it. It’s about being sure that you have the most magic.”

 

“And look what it’s done to you.” Emma glares at the fire, suddenly angry. “Don’t you see the difference? Do you think you’d have ever done what you did to me without it?” A hand slides to her heart unconsciously. “That wasn’t _you_.”

 

Regina watches her in silence. “Yes, it was, Emma. It was always me.” Her eyes are sad but firm, resigned to a reality that Emma has yet to accept. “I loved you, did you know that?” Emma abruptly stops breathing. Loved. _Loved_.

 

Regina offers her a small smile. “You were the only person in my life I still cared about. All I wanted was to keep you safe.”

 

“By taking my heart away from me?” She remembers what the man teaching Regina had told her about hearts, about how to control them with magic. She wouldn’t have been able to do anything for herself if Regina had held her heart. She wouldn’t have been _herself_. And she doesn’t trust Regina enough to have ever given it freely. Maybe she would have before, but that’s a whole new form of irony.

 

“I would have taken care of it,” Regina assures her, and how can she _not understand_ like this? How can she believe that Emma would have accepted that?

 

But she does. Sincerity is written across her face, earnest belief that Emma would see things the way that she does, and her guard is down again and she looks just like she had before all this magic. And she still truly believes that Emma would have been happy and protected with no heart. “You’re right,” she murmurs, and Regina’s brow wrinkles in confusion. “Magic didn’t make you do that.”

 

She bites back nausea and hates herself for the words still ringing in her ears. _I loved you, did you know that?_

 

* * *

The Dark One’s castle is visible by the time the sun is high in the sky the next afternoon, deep in a valley within a cluster of mountain peaks not too far away. Which means ogre country and Regina definitely can’t use her magic without being noticed, so Emma keeps her bow at her side and they take the most populated road they can find.

 

They eat in a tavern in the poor lands around the castle in the evening and purchase a room for Quinn to stay in after the two of them leave. Regina sniffs at the food and declares the room disgusting and unlivable, but she still takes Quinn’s bed for herself and leaves him and Emma on sleeping pads on the floor. “Don’t you live in the woods anyway?” she points out.

 

“We have cabins and tents and shelters,” Quinn grumbles. “And _beds_.” Emma spends more nights out on her own than most, and she’s more than accustomed to sleeping pads in the woods, but Quinn hasn’t been doing this for nearly as long as she has.

 

And he’s just bratty enough to be a match for Regina, who raises an eyebrow and smirks. “You wanted to come along, didn’t you?”

 

“I wanted to see the Dark Castle, not go camping with a spoiled queen!”

 

Regina’s lips are bared in what’s probably a smirk but looks a lot more like a grimace. “You’re a child. Do you know what the Dark One does to annoying children?”

 

“Okay!” Emma claps her hands. “How about we talk about our plan once we get there? Or what route we’re taking down the mountain tomorrow? Or tell stories around the fire, I don’t care. Anything but more bickering.”

 

Regina hmphs and sits up on her bed in a flounce. Quinn perks up. “Have you ever heard the legend of how the Dark One was first created?” They shake their heads. “They say that he was once just a man, a princeling of a distant kingdom. He was to inherit most of the lands that we have now once he came of age, and he was handsome and good with a sword and women and men flocked to him, hoping to earn his favor.

 

He was so renowned that he caught the attention of the Black Fairy, they say.” Quinn sits against the edge of the fireplace, staring into the flames as he recounts his story. “She was smitten at once, so she clothed herself as a mortal and came to meet him. He fell in love with her and they wed and her mortal body was soon expecting a child.”

 

Quinn’s voice is almost melodious as he mimics the cadence of a storyteller, rhythmic and lilting. Emma stretches out onto her sleeping pad, letting him lull her to restfulness. “And then the prince found her wand, hidden deep within her bedrooms. He was furious at the lie, and he didn’t know what his child would become. They fought each other that night, he with a dagger and she with her wand, and he plunged his dagger into her heart.”

 

“What a charming story,” Regina says. Emma kicks at the side of the bed warningly.

 

Quinn continues. “Her heart was as black as her name implies, of course, and though she did die a mortal death on that day, it was one that the man would come to regret. His own heart blackened as quickly as she died, becoming a dark and withered thing. And the Black Fairy’s power was passed into the prince’s dagger and thusly into his heart, giving him magic untold but bitterness and hatred just as strong. At the end of the day, it was he who was the monstrous Dark One.” He shrugs, laughing off the story as soon as it had been completed. “It’s nonsense, of course. Can you imagine the Black Fairy falling in love? Once your heart gets that black, there’s no coming back from it.”

 

Regina frowns. “You don’t think people with dark hearts can love?”

 

“Do you?” Quinn shakes his head. “Isn’t that what it means? She couldn’t love the prince, not for real. She wouldn’t have even loved the baby. She loved power.”

 

“Of course she would have loved her baby. Dark magic doesn’t keep you from _feeling_ ; it just lets you make bad decisions more easily.  And on a bigger scale.” Regina dares a glance at Emma, who watches them both sleepily. It’s too late at night to start thinking about the nature of evil and love and its implications, no matter how stubbornly determined her companions are to argue about something.

 

“It wouldn’t be true love, though. Not the way a parent should care for a child. It’s twisted and evil and that baby was probably lucky it was never born,” Quinn says dismissively. “I lived in homes where the parents didn’t love their babies. I’d rather grow up with no family at all than with parents like that.”

 

“You’re a fool,” Regina says coolly. “All parents love their children. Some aren’t very good at showing it, but it doesn’t mean they don’t love them.” Emma thinks about Regina’s mother, standing below her as tree limbs snake around her daughter’s body, a serene smile on her face. She wants to say something to her, to join in on this conversation and provide Regina with some support against Quinn’s firmly black-and-white beliefs. But what does she know about parents and children and being loved by either? She closes her eyes instead, saying nothing to Quinn’s answering scoff.

 

“You live in an ideal world,” he says. “ _Your Majesty_.”

 

There’s a long silence. “You know nothing about where I live.”

 

“And you know nothing about darkness.” Quinn laughs sharply. “I spent my childhood in poverty in King George’s domain. My eyes are wide open to misery and pain.” Regina says nothing. “Who taught you about magic? Was it the Blue Fairy when you were an itty-bitty princess, learning how to make flowers bloom on their own and conjuring chocolate cake? Did an elf come to your door and offer to make you a hero among your people?” His tone is mocking, and he’s so innocent, so overconfident even when he’s seen what Regina’s capable of, and Emma’s not entirely sure that Regina won’t blast him with some fireballs right now.

 

She’s about to crack an eye open when Regina says, very evenly, “Actually, it was the Dark One himself.”

 

Which isn’t entirely a surprise. Emma had seen the man teaching Regina and she’d known there was something off about him, something inhuman and dark beyond her comprehension, but she hadn’t made the connection between Regina’s teacher and the Dark One until they’d left on this voyage. But Quinn isn’t expecting it, and she can hear his sharp intake of breath before he speaks again, more timid than she’s ever heard him before. Sensible. “Why would a queen need the services of the Dark One?”

 

Regina laughs darkly, a low chuckle that settles into Emma’s veins. “Because, Quinn, some parents aren’t very good at showing their love for their children,” she echoes. “But others are a little too ardent.”

 

Quinn presses onward and Regina has quick rejoinders and Emma struggles to listen to them over her exhaustion, the low murmurs of queen and boy carrying her over to slumber.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WOW LOOK I STILL EXIST. Previously on SMBTS: Regina has hired Emma to help her steal something from Rumple's castle. This one takes place at about the same time as most of the It's Not Easy Being Green flashbacks, take from that what you will~

She awakens to the smell of fresh meat and eggs and soap. The latter is from Regina, who’s curled up beside her with her knees poking at Emma’s back as she delicately spears fruit from the plate on her lap. When she sees Emma’s eyes staring at her, she starts and shifts away, looking guilty. “Good, you’re up. It’s been hours.”

 

“Right.” Quinn hands her a plate from where he’s seated behind them on the bed. “Her Majesty over here spent the pre-sunrise morning in the baths and then ordered me to get the breakfast. You didn’t miss anything.”

 

Regina purses her lips. “Yes, I value cleanliness. Are you aware of how fetid you smell?”

 

“Breakfast,” Emma says, ignoring them both. “Give me.” Quinn lifts several strips of meat off the tray and she hunches over them, savoring the taste of fresh food in the morning instead of stale bread. She polishes off the fruit and the juice and is halfway through her eggs before she sees Regina watching her, eyes gleaming with amusement. “Oh, shut up. Have you ever even wanted for food?” she says, tossing a balled-up pair of socks at her.

 

Regina catches them and wrinkles her nose. “I wasn’t mocking you. You’re just…”

 

“Coarse? Boorish?”

 

Regina’s laughing now without a sound, eyes sparkling and lips curved upward, and she says, “No,” and Emma flushes and doesn’t know why.

 

* * *

 

There’s no fuss from Quinn when they depart, no demand to be brought along or wheedling at all, and Emma is so suspicious that they double back a half hour into their journey to make sure that he isn’t following them.

 

“He isn’t,” Regina insists.

 

Emma narrows her eyes at her. “How do you know that?”

 

Regina shrugs. “I ordered him not to. He knows better than to disobey a queen.”

 

“We’re talking about the same Quinn here?” But Regina is sitting proud in her saddle, confident and smug but glancing back at her as though seeking affirmation for it. It’s surprisingly young and insecure for Regina, another moment where she’s forced to remind herself that there is no distinct divorce between the girl who was and the queen she’s beginning to know against all better judgment.

 

She wants them to be different, wants to pretend that Regina has been changed so drastically by darkness that there’s nothing left to her. It’s easier to believe that when they’re working alongside each other and she wants nothing more than to do this every day, to ride beside Regina and steal with her and watch her eyes shine when she looks at her. But then there are moments like this where it’s clear that there is no true distance there, that Regina is still Regina and she’s drawn to her regardless.

 

“How did you sleep?” she says abruptly, riding ahead.

 

Regina catches up with ease. “I didn’t. We’re too close to the castle now.” Emma frowns and turns to take Regina in. She’s barefaced and clean and the shadows under her eyes are barely visible, her gaze narrowed and focused on the road ahead. She looks driven, wild-eyed under her focus, and Emma knows the sight of a desperate thief better than anyone. Someone looking for an answer to all their problems and certain that an item out there might give it to them.

 

They’re rarely right, and more dangerous than most. “Isn’t it time you told me what we’re after?” she asks. “I’m good, but I’m not that good.”

 

Regina spares her a tight smile. “A spell,” she says. She’s suddenly tense on her steed, moving too quickly and then slowing Rocinante so abruptly that she nearly slides out of her saddle. “Are you still going to help me?”

 

“Regina, you told me we were going to the _Dark One’s castle_. I knew we were after something magical.” She chews on her lip and presses her thighs against Beetle’s sides, urging him on. “Anyway, it’s probably better off in your hands than in the Dark One’s, right?”

 

Regina nods. “Thank you.”

 

She shrugs self-consciously. “You’re paying me. I’m not doing it out of the good of my heart.” But she’s blushing as another smile blooms onto Regina’s face. This one is knowing and affectionate, and it’s making her heart jump against her throat when she tries to keep talking.

 

“I’m doing a good thing with it,” Regina says, but she sounds uncertain. “I need to…it’s the only one of its kind and this is how it should be used, I swear.” There’s a hitch in her voice and the wildness in her eyes is even more pronounced than before, but Emma stays silent and waits until Regina goes on. “I need it.”

 

“Are you going to hurt anyone?”

 

Regina shakes her head vigorously. “No! I wouldn’t hurt anyone!” She closes her eyes. “I wouldn’t…not unless I had to. Or if I thought…if it was important. I don’t want to hurt people. I just want to be happy.”

 

“And this will make you happy.”

 

“Nothing’s going to make me happy anymore, Emma.” Her gaze is fraught with meaning and Emma looks away. There’s no response to that that can possibly go anywhere good, and she’s learned from her mistakes with Regina. “This will make me safe.”

 

Or maybe she doesn’t learn from her mistakes at all. “That’s why you’re using magic? Because it makes you _safe_?”

 

Regina rears up in her saddle. “What are you trying to say, Lady Swan? What do you think I’m after?”

 

“I think…” She regrets speaking up already, because Regina’s heart is in her eyes now and it’s defensive and angry already, and all it seems to be doing is churning up something within her, a fire she should know better than to release in front of someone as volatile as Regina. “I think everyone I’ve ever heard of who pursued magic wanted something else. Not safety.” Regina arches an eyebrow, jaw tight and shut. “Power. That’s what magic is, right?”

 

Now Regina’s eyebrows knit together. “It’s a lot of things. That doesn’t mean I’m going to…” Her voice trails off and Emma realizes a moment too late that there’s a look of utter disbelief on her face. “Fine. Yes. It’s power. It’s power and it’s control and it’s _all I have_.”

 

“It’s not all you have. You could have-“

 

“No!” Rocinante snorts in response. “No, I couldn’t have gone off and joined the Merry Men or whatever dream you’ve dreamt up for me. You think…you think it’s all so _easy_ , don’t you?” Regina spits out, and Emma recoils. “But not everyone can run off and never be found. The people say the king is kind and maybe he is to them, but I’m only another possession to him. Do you know what I had to go through just to leave the castle for a few days? How much magic it took to persuade the guards that I was still there?” She shudders. “I won’t be locked in a cage again with nothing but impotent hatred. You know nothing of how I’ve suffered.”

 

And Emma hurts and is angry all at once, at the king and at Regina and at the senselessness of it all. “I’ve been through plenty of suffering in my life. And you never even tried to come with me! You never even tried to escape! You took magic because it was easy,” she accuses, and there’s that frightening glint in Regina’s eyes again, the one that had Emma begging for her heart not too long ago. Not again. Never again. “You took magic because it lets you be bitter.” She’s seen it in Regina’s every move since the day she’d taken Emma’s heart, watched it weighing her down step by step until she’s become this person, darkening more and more every day. 

 

Regina’s lip curls. “And you’re so free of bitterness?” she sneers. “What would I do with you, stalk Snow White as you do Prince James?”

 

“That’s not the same.” She uses her frustration for good. All she does is level the playing field, even if it’s childish at times and serves little ultimate purpose. “You don’t understand-“

 

“Oh, I think I do.” Regina is molten lava now, heat and rage bubbling off of her in a calm, slow roll. “Do you think I couldn’t put the pieces together? I’m no fool. I _listen_ to you. I care about you enough to accept your petty vendetta. And you judge me for fighting back when you’re just as angry over something you can’t change. You’re fighting your own war and it’s not about you at all, it’s just about hurting those who hurt you, so don’t you lecture me on how I’m coping.”

 

She’s frozen in place, seething with fury at Regina’s presumption, at harsh words she’s never heard from her. On a normal day, Regina cuts like a knife, sharp scrapes that leave little lasting damage, but today she’s a pair of scissors digging directly into old scars and pulling out bits of Emma with grim precision. “Fine,” she manages, and she presses against Beetle like she never has before, tangling her fingers in his mane and leaning forward as he breaks into a gallop.

 

“Emma!” Regina calls after her, anger mingling with frustration. “Emma, wait.”

 

She yanks at the reins and they canter around to face Regina. “Tell me this, Regina. Have you ever hurt someone with magic? Someone who never hurt you?”

 

Regina’s face is suddenly expressionless. But Emma knows her, can read that mask as easily as a book and her heart sinks even as righteous anger reaches a plateau within her. “That’s what I thought.” She halts Beetle and waits until Regina stops in front of her. “What’s the spell, Regina? What are we taking out of the Dark One’s castle?”

 

Regina’s jaw works under her skin. “I swear to you, I’m not going to hurt anyone. You have to trust me.”

 

“I don’t,” Emma says flatly. “Tell me what this spell is for or I turn around and go back home now.”

 

“It’s harmless against innocents,” Regina says, stiff on her horse. The fury is still there, glimmering in her eyes, but desperation has taken hold of her and Emma can’t quite look away.

 

“Yeah? So who are you planning to use it on? The Dark One? King Leopold?”

 

“Forget it,” Regina snaps. “I don’t need your help.” She turns and rides onward up the mountain with new determination, driving Rocinante forward without looking back.

 

“Yes, you do,” Emma sighs, the rage seeping out of her. Regina doesn’t hear, but she follows anyway, Beetle keeping a steady pace until Regina slows down and they’re riding beside each other in silence.

 

* * *

 

“Why?” Regina asks finally when they’re harnessing their horses and leaving them fresh grain in a spot just beyond the castle gates.

 

And there’s no proper reason, nothing that makes sense when Emma _doesn’t_ trust Regina, can’t trust her, but believes her all the same. Something within her can sense the lies as soon as they cross Regina’s lips, and she knows that Regina isn’t lying about not hurting anyone.

 

“I don’t want you to feel trapped,” she says finally, and it’s somewhere between an acknowledgement and an apology and Regina says, “I never feel trapped with you,” and that’s a responding apology, just as tersely offered.

 

They move forward all the same.

 

* * *

 

The castle stretches only a few levels above them, modest but impressive all the same, and Emma is immediately cataloguing the structure with a thief’s eye. Alternate ground routes in and out are unlikely, but if they’re trapped on one of the higher levels then they might be able to maneuver around the Dark One and make their way back downstairs. There’s a small ledge below each of the windows, an easy backup option for Emma, though she doesn’t think Regina would be quite so inclined to jump down.

 

“This isn’t bad,” she says aloud. “Nice and simple.”

 

Regina gives her a look. “Except the all-powerful Dark One who lives inside.” She studies the entryway, walking up to it with confidence. “He’s been preoccupied for the past week or so. Something he won’t reveal to me but crows about as though I know and should be angry.”

 

“Sounds like a smug bastard.”

 

“Indeed he is.” She pushes at the door and it slides open before Emma can stop her. “But a busy one. I don’t think he’s been home for days.” The entrance hall stretches before them, large and silent, and Emma glances around with suspicious eyes. At her periphery, she sees something shift and the arrow springs from her bow automatically, striking a suit of armor with a clang that reverberates through the room.

 

“Emma!” Regina snaps. She rolls her eyes with clear displeasure. “Dark One. Castle. Can I leave you along without you lashing out at every enchanted item we–“ She stops. “Oh, no. What did you do?”

 

“You don’t know that I did that,” Emma says defensively, stringing another arrow as the suit of armor takes a jerky step forward. There’s a clang behind them and she spins around, taking in the sight of another suit of armor. Taking steps forward.

 

Then they both start throwing knives.

 

Emma shoves Regina back and ducks, firing an arrow at one enchanted guard’s hand. It jerks and then swings back into place with a ponderous move, catching a knife as it returns to its hand and hurling it at her again. “Get inside!” she orders. “I’ll hold them off!” Which seems fairly hopeless as a third and fourth suit of armor snap to life, their mechanical hands shifting to retrieve their own knives from their belts. Emma shoots an arrow to intersect with the first guard’s knife, sending it off-balance to drop to the floor. It doesn’t return to the armor and she smirks with satisfaction, glancing at Regina as the other girl stalks toward the door, dodging a knife from one of the later guards.

 

Regina is a few steps from the door when it _connects_ , the horrifying reality of what’s happening to them as they’re herded toward the interior. Emma doesn’t have time to shout a warning, doesn’t think beyond the awareness that they’re headed into a trap and the Dark One will spare no prisoners, and her arrow shoots past Regina an instant before Regina touches the door, barely a handbreadth from her face.

 

“Are you mad?” Regina sputters. But then fire is exploding from the place where the arrow had hit and they both stare, frozen in place with surprise and relief.

 

There’s a low growl and Emma glances to the back of the room, where a full-sized bear is lowering onto its haunches, sightless black eyes boring down on her, and she dances out of the path of two knives and closer to their newest monster, readying her bow again.

 

“Wait.” Emma spares a quick glance behind her. Regina is still standing in front of the door, brow furrowed as she studies it. “I think it’s all right now. Shoot another arrow.”

 

This one hits the door and drops to the ground, and Regina bends down to retrieve it, fingering it thoughtfully as she pushes the door open. “Come with me,” she says, reaching for Emma, and they walk through the door together.

 

Emma slams the door shut just as the bear howls, cutting him short and leaving them in silence. “How did you know?”

 

Regina shrugs, worrying her lip as she holds onto Emma’s hand. Emma doesn’t pull away. “I know the Dark One. He’d want anyone capable of getting past his booby traps…inside.” She gestures to the room they’re in.

 

“That’s grim,” Emma says, looking around and pushing thoughts of their escape from her mind for the time being as she cases the area. This room is easily the entire ground floor of the castle. There’s a spinning wheel at the far end and a bed on one side, with a long table stretching across the center of the room. “This is his whole house, then,” she says, moving to inspect the table and the glass ball that is its current sole occupant. Regina follows, their hands still linked. “If he’s hiding something, it won’t be in here.”

 

She stares into the ball, frowning at the image inside it, a distorted vision of a little dark-skinned girl wearing odd, colorful clothing as she stands in front of a flat grey road. Something roars past her, like a metal carriage that’s too large and fast, and Emma stumbles back. “Who is she?”

 

“Dorothy Gale,” Regina says.

 

“What?”

 

Regina nods to the ball again. There’s a paper below it she hadn’t noticed, with the name printed in sloping black script at the top. Below it is a series of numbers she can’t divine any meaning from. “She must be important.”

 

“Not to us.” Regina purses her lips. “We have a curse to find.”

 

“Curse?”

 

“Spell,” she amends, and Emma scowls at her.

 

“Okay. Tell me what it does.”

 

“Emma-“

 

“I’m serious. You lose me if you don’t answer that. And I’m betting you have no idea how to get upstairs.” She does, had spotted the hidden staircase the moment she’d cataloged the room, but Regina is all action and reaction and has little eye for the subtleties of draped tapestries and carefully placed photo frames. “This is it for me, Regina.”

 

Regina’s lips clamp together and she drops Emma’s hand. Emma waits, eyes flickering back to the crystal ball as the scene shifts to indistinct images of green smoke and a wolf running in the moonlight and an alien-looking road and… _is that a baby_? She leans forward to squint at the infant’s face and the ball shimmers and there’s a boy staring up at her for a flash before she sees a woman instead, dressed all in black with eyes harsh and so filled with hate as she turns around to face Emma that it takes her a moment to realize that it’s Regina.

 

Her heart skips a beat and she doesn’t know how she’s left breathless with horror at just a distorted image in a glass orb, but she’s nearly brought to sobs when a hand takes her by the wrist and a voice says urgently, “Emma. Emma, close your eyes.”

 

She shakes her head, eyes glued to the ball as that Regina mouths words at her, sharp and scathing and bitter, and she can see now that Regina is standing in front of a straw cradle, one hand clamped against its side possessively. There’s nothing gentle in her gaze, none of the pain or affection that Emma sees when Regina’s at her worst, nothing that connects her to Emma or any emotions beyond dark disgust. It’s staggering and she’s transfixed, desperate to do _something_ , to make whatever is wrong between them somehow okay, and then there are warm fingers against her eyes and she can’t see anything at all.

 

“No! I need to…” Regina- _her_ Regina, the Regina who still cares- tugs her closer, turning her around with a firm hand, and when she lets Emma go, there is no vision of the future before her. There’s only Regina, younger and still soft-faced with concern in her eyes, and Emma reaches for her with both hands and cradles them against her cheeks and kisses her urgently, feeling warm lips responding and a dip of Regina’s tongue that feels like home. “I need…” she says again, but now it’s breathy and emerging between kisses and she’s sliding her hands up under Regina’s vest to feel her skin underneath it. It’s a reassurance that she’s real, that she’s Regina, that she loves her, and she sags against her with relief, pressing her lips to the crook of the other girl’s neck as Regina holds her close.

 

“I’m sorry,” she says finally. She can’t quite bring herself to move from the comfort of Regina’s embrace, but she pulls her head up so they’re facing each other, close enough to kiss again.

 

“It’s a draining curse,” Regina responds, and there’s an awful agony on her face as she lets Emma go, pressing her fingers against her lips as though to wipe away Emma’s touch. Emma shudders and they both stare down.

 

“What?”

 

“The curse. You wanted to know what it was for.” Regina arches her fingers against the table and Emma shifts her gaze to them, grateful for any excuse to keep her eyes down. “It’s called the Ignoble Curse. I found reference to it in my mother’s old book and Rump- and the Dark One has it in his possession. It can permanently strip any magic user of all her powers.”

 

“And you want it,” Emma says slowly, looking up. An odd hope flares in her heart, but Regina’s face is unreadable. “Why do you need it?”

 

“Does it matter?” Regina shifts, fingers moving to fidget with each other at her waist. “Now you know that I can’t use it on anyone but a magic-user. I’m not using it on anyone who doesn’t deserve it to begin with.”

 

Emma breathes. “Okay. I…um…sorry again about the whole…” She waves her hand vaguely at Regina’s mouth and Regina shrugs, fingers twitchy again.

 

“It’s fine. It got you away from that crystal ball, didn’t it?”

 

Emma nods, still dazed as she avoids looking at the table again. “How did you manage to avoid being sucked in?”

 

Regina presses her lips together and then opens them with a faint hiss like a kiss fallen short. “I don’t want to know my future,” she says tersely. “Now, how do we find that curse?”

 

* * *

 

The upper level is all musty hallways and tiny rooms like little cells, faintly lit by the sun and full of dusty old artifacts and cobwebs. “How do curses look?” she murmurs to Regina. “Just little scrolls like in the stories?”

 

Regina nods, though she looks uncertain about it, too. “He must be keeping them somewhere safe. Like…” Her eyes brighten as they climb up the next set of stairs to the top level, just beside the castle’s towers. “There. The library.”

 

Emma supposes that when you’re immortal, you have a lot more time for organization, and that’s why it’s so easy to look through the Dark One’s library, at a wall of precisely categorized spellbooks and another with tiny shelves with a few rolled up documents in each one and a card folded at the front with a name on it. She sees a shelf marked with King George’s name, two documents within it, and she’s reaching for the first interestedly when Regina says suddenly, “I found them.”

 

She’s standing in front of a tall cabinet with more of the same kinds of shelves inside. In these, though, there are wrapped scrolls within, each one carefully marked and glowing faintly at the edges. Emma peers at them. “We’re looking for the Ignoble Curse, right?”

 

“Yes.” Regina is turning cards one by one to examine them, and Emma sees for the first time a hunger in her eyes, the kind of glimmer that would have made her quake under it, had it been pointed at her.

 

But it isn’t. It’s magic and power and Regina is like a moth fluttering toward a flame, scorched a tiny bit more every time it flies closer and never recoiling.

 

She swallows and attempts to fizzle the tension in the room. “Can’t the people who make these up come up with better names for them? I mean, this one’s the Great Curse. Terrifying, sure, but kind of vague. And the…Ferocious Curse?” She eyes it dubiously. “Did they run out of names?” She’s pleased to see that Regina is smirking, gaze turned from the wall of scrolls to her and the hunger faded. “And here we have the Dark Curse, which I’m positive would be the perfect curse to use when I want to nap on the road during the day.” She pokes at it, prodding at the outer glow. “Oh. Here’s the one we want.” She slides it off the shelf and it instantly stops glowing. She cocks her head. “That doesn’t bode well.”

 

“No,” Regina agrees, voice tight, and she bolts for the stairs. “Emma, we need to run. He’s going to be here any…”

 

“Why, hello, dearie! Aren’t you a bit early?” It’s the man from the woods, the one who isn’t quite a man anymore at all, and he gleams golden as he grins horribly at her. Behind him, Regina slips down the stairs in silence, and Emma’s stomach sinks. “Lady Swan, I presume? It has been so long, I hardly recognized you.” He giggles, shrill and mocking, and she takes a step back and stumbles back into the cabinet.

 

“I…I don’t know you. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she manages, fingers steadying her against the shelves.

 

“Do you?” He moves closer, leering down at her face with his own scaly one. “I had thought it would be years before we met again. But here you are in my library, stealing my spells. What a treat.” Curled fingers run from her shoulder down her arm to her hand, snatching the curse from her grasp. “And what need does a simple thief have for…” He opens the scroll, his eyebrows raised. “The Dark Curse? What an _interesting_ choice.”

 

She glares up at him and he closes his hand around her chin, glassy eyes suddenly narrowed. “You were sent by my student.”

 

“No,” she says immediately.

 

“Liar.” He drawls out the word, then squeezes her cheeks, harsh and painful. Her hands slide to her knife. “Don’t take that out. You don’t need to have your hands for what I need you for.” She stills.

 

She hasn’t felt like this in a long time, helpless in an enemy’s grip with nothing good enough to defend herself, and she stands stiffly, eyes open as the Dark One inspects her again. She thinks about Quinn for a moment, back at the inn and expecting her to return with glory. She thinks about the Merry Men attentive, waiting for her call to begin the good fight again. She thinks about Regina, running from the castle, safe and sound, and her eyes close, content with the knowledge that Regina still has a future.

 

And then she thinks of purple smoke and a child’s face and Regina and wonders what future she might still have just as there’s a low hiss somewhere in front of her. “Let her go, Rumple.”

Her eyes pop open and there the other girl is, standing at the top of the stairs unsmilingly as she extends a hand, fireball humming at the center of it.

 

The Dark One cackles. “Well. Looks like you’ve finally gotten the hang of it.” His gaze flicker from the fire to Emma and then back to Regina. “You’re working with _Regina_ ,” he says, eyes widening with sudden comprehension. “But Regina’s been after…” His hand clamps down on the shelf behind Emma where the spell they’d stolen had been. “Where is it? What have you done with my curse?”

 

“It’s gone,” Regina says, palm twitching under her fireball. “Swan Hood swapped them and slipped it to me. And I’ve disposed of it.”

 

“Disposed…” The Dark One drops Emma’s chin abruptly, wheeling around. “You had a second accomplice.”

 

Emma jerks. “What?”

 

“Mm.” Regina doesn’t move. “Let her _go_.”

 

“Are you threatening me?” The Dark One vanishes and reappears in front of Regina, waving a hand through her flames. “Regina, Regina, Regina. What is this mere thief worth to you?” He lowers his voice, the laughter gone from it and replaced with creaky threat. “No one steals from me and gets away with it.”

 

Regina’s lips firm. “Then punish me, not her. She didn’t take anything.” Emma’s reminded of Regina standing before her mother just after they’d met, offering herself for Little John and accepting the consequence with resignation. It sends little shock waves through a place in her heart she’s been trying to secrete away since said heart was first removed from her body, a place that has dreams for Regina beyond the ones that involve Emma herself.

 

The Dark One twirls his fingers to point to Emma. “What do you care about _her_? She’s just collateral damage.” Regina’s face is suddenly very still. The Dark One sees something there regardless and he snarls with disgust. “You are meant for more than this, Regina. We’ve talked about this. If she’s holding you back-“

 

“She’ll only hold me back if she suffers on my behalf,” Regina says evenly, and there’s the tiniest hint of a threat there. Emma bites her tongue- literally- to keep from saying anything as the Dark One considers. There’s a tension on his face now, a stillness frightening in its mildness, and she’s afraid to break it while Regina waits.

 

Finally, he smiles, displaying rotten teeth at them both. “Very well. Next time, dearie.” It’s said with certitude, and she tries and fails not to shiver as she walks gingerly past him to Regina.

 

He doesn’t pursue them after they walk out of the castle and doesn’t seek to retrieve the spell from them, and Emma climbs onto Beetle and waits until they’re a half hour away before she says, “You had Quinn follow us.”

 

“Yes.” Regina doesn’t look at her. “He’s riding ahead with all our belongings so there’s no need to stop in town. We’ll meet at nightfall.”

 

“He’s a _child_. You told him to come to the Dark One’s castle without any protection?”

 

“We needed him.” Regina stares ahead. “I didn’t think we’d be able to escape the castle at all without being caught, and I had to ensure that the curse was far from Rumplestiltskin’s grasp before we were.”

 

“You thought…” Emma shakes her head, disbelieving. “You _knew_ we’d be caught? I still don’t know how we got out and you were sending Quinn off to risk his life for your damned curse? I don’t think some power play was worth all three of us!”

 

“It wasn’t.” Regina slows Rocinante and turns to face her. “Rumple needs me. It took me a while to realize it, but…he won’t risk my training by hurting me- or you. I took that gamble and it worked, all right? You’re fine, Quinn is fine, I’m fine. We have the curse and Rumple won’t take it from me once it’s in my hands. Good work, Lady Swan,” she says, and ignores Emma’s sputtering as she rides on.

 

“I never said I would risk Quinn’s life for you!”

 

“Quinn risked his own life,” Regina says coolly, but there’s a twitch in her jaw that Emma can see at last, a hint of guilt that she can’t hide. “Let him have this.”

 

“I will not _let him have this._ Not when he’s stupid enough to…” She’s seething, mentally swearing off all contact with Regina for good and vowing to never work for her again, and she follows behind, Beetle on edge from the anger he can sense from her. To have Regina be so reckless with herself is frustrating enough, but to see her use someone Emma cares about like that is galling. She wants to…she wants to…

 

And then dusk comes and there’s a fire in the distance, Quinn roasting a pair of rabbits and looking very pleased with himself, and Regina is listening indulgently to his recounting of the story- seeing her in the window, hiding out of sight, breaking a window with a stone and catching the curse as it had been tossed to him- and Emma forces herself to congratulate him. She also threatens him to never do it again, but he grins sleekly like the damnably reckless teenager he is and her stomach churns with new worry. She hates this, hates caring so much about both of these idiots who charge into danger with no thought of the consequences.

 

“Don’t tell me you aren’t the same,” Regina murmurs, reading her emotions straight off of her face as she comes to sit beside her. “I know you’re angry-“

 

“ _Livid_.”

 

“-But I did what had to be done.” She waits another moment, sneaking a glance at Emma’s stony face, and then she says, “My mother.”

 

Emma blinks. “What?”

 

“I found a letter earlier this week from Rumple to my mother. She’s in another realm now- I pushed her into another realm to escape her.” Regina leans back on her palms, gazing up at the sky. “If he can send that letter, she might be able to come back. Especially if she knows that I’m learning magic. I’m going to use the curse on her.”

 

“Oh.” Emma deflates, anger not quite gone but not nearly as pronounced as it had been before. There’s something about the specter of Regina’s mother that still fills her with dread, the image of the woman standing amongst brawling men and watching her carriage depart with nothing less than serenity at her own control of the situation.

 

And Regina had _grown up_ with the woman. “Good, I guess. That’s good.”

 

There’s another disappointment there that she doesn’t dare to express, a hope she had been foolish to entertain. “I thought…I thought you might have wanted to use it on yourself,” she admits, and then she ducks her head and fidgets with a stone from the ground as Regina’s eyes widen and then drop as well, the two of them stubborn in the holes they’ve burrowed for themselves, ever deeper in the ground.


	7. Chapter 7

There’s an itch somewhere within her that she can’t quite pin down the next time she rides out to King George’s castle, and she rides back without the coins she’d been planning on stealing from his tax collectors. She stops in towns along the road and sees the way that the people live in poverty and the itch begins to sting like a full-fledged burn.

 

It isn’t because of her, she knows that. The people of George’s kingdom have always suffered, always been destitute under his rule. His taxes are harsher than ever and the people have benefited from the spoils of the Merry Men.

 

But she’s quiet in one village square when she’s sitting at a table with Quinn and Will and the king’s knights come out to announce a second collection. “By order of the king!” one knight announces. The people seem to heave a sigh as one, angry murmurs rising louder and louder. The knight waves his hands and shouts over them, “You want to blame someone, blame Swan Hood! He’s the one who leaves us penniless!”

 

The anger rises to a roar and Emma stares down at her plate, guilt scraping at her throat. “Listen.” There’s a hand on hers and Will is grinning at her. “Do you hear them? No bloody credit to King George, they hate him too much.”

 

She _does_ hear then, the villagers shouting out taunts at the guards. “Swan Hood feeds us! Swan Hood would be king! Our last coins for Swan Hood!” There had been a time when those cries would have galvanized her, when she would have ridden from the town with her head held high and confident that she’d been doing the right thing.

 

Now, though, she’s watching the knights as a horse kicks aside a protestor who gets too close and she thinks of Regina’s accusation, of pettiness that may have driven this kingdom to its knees. There’s James and his spending to point a finger at; there’s George and his need to puff himself up like a peacock amidst the other rulers. But she can’t help but wonder if she really is partially to blame.

 

She’s certainly not the savior they laud her as, the selfless hero they defend against armed men, and she swallows hard and glares harder at the table.

 

“They love us,” Quinn says, sounding smug, and Will laughs and claps his back.

 

“That they do, lad. What’s the matter, Swan? Too much royal horseshit in this town?”

 

She rolls her eyes at them both and stands, stretching as she rises. “Let’s get out of here. I have things to do.”

 

Will instead insists on taking Quinn out drinking. Emma doesn’t wait to see if she’s invited. Instead she mounts Beetle and rides out through the kingdom, passing out of King George’s borders and into Leopold’s in just a few hours. She pulls on her hood and circles the road to his castle in an aimless gallop. _Just passing through. Nothing to see here_.

 

But she doesn’t leave until she sees Regina, dressed in pale green as she sits in her garden, staring up at her tree. She’s beautiful as a wood nymph like this, dark hair cascading down past her shoulders and dress the color of dew-shiny leaves, and there are no shadows on her face when she’s at peace. If her mother had come, Regina had dealt with her, and Emma blinks hard and pulls at her reins, urging Beetle to turn away.

 

“Emma,” Regina says, and it drifts across the quiet lawn to the road in a whisper that sings around her. When Emma looks up, Regina is watching her, silent with an apple in her hand and her lips not quite tilted downward anymore.

 

She wiggles her fingers in a half wave and rides from the castle, beet-red as though she’d been caught doing more than just seeking comfort from the sight of the queen.

 

* * *

It takes several weeks before they discover the full extent of George’s embargo on them. Emma has led a group up to Midas’s kingdom and another out to the wealthiest towns under King Michael’s purview, careful to avoid the places where others would be forced to suffer for her cause.

 

It isn’t as though she’s motivated only to poke at James and his father, she reminds herself on one occasion as she certainly does _not_ ride to King Leopold’s castle again. There are children out there, little girls who’ve grown up just like she had in dozens of homes that couldn’t feed them or care for them properly. They’re the ones she slips extra coins to, the ones she offers the last of her bounty, the ones she watches when they go and determinedly holds back her emotions so her men can’t see them. Most have families that love them even when they have no money to their names and she…she wants them to stay loved and happy and safe.

 

She is more than a _petty vendetta_ , she assures herself, and rides away from the castle before Regina can see her. In the morning they’re going to venture back into King George’s territory, this time with plentiful riches to spread to the towns that had defended them, and Little John and Will are in high spirits as they make their way down to the village square.

 

The first two towns greet them as heroes, joyful songs and cheers as they toss out their winnings, and Emma sits high and draws her hood tight to her hair as she rides past the villagers. Little John is chucking apples to children and Quinn has three goats tied up with loose ropes around his wrist that he offers out to a trio of boys not much older than he is.

 

It’s a rush, it feels like she’s finally doing the right thing, and it’s enough that she doesn’t notice that their third stop is silent until Will nudges her. “What has them so wary?” he murmurs, nodding to the row of beggars shuffling quietly along.

 

Emma frowns. “I don’t know. Maybe we’d better do this a bit less…pomp and circumstance.” She slides off Beetle and glances around, disrobing and shoving her cloak into her saddlebag before she climbs back on. None of the beggars look up at them.

 

And then one does- a girl who can’t be much older than ten- and her eyes scream a warning just as there’s a shout. “We have them! We have the Merry Men!” The king’s knights ride out from around the square, bursting from concealment and bearing down on them.

 

“There’s Little John!” one of the front ones barks out. “Where’s Swan?” There are two dozen at least, eyes hungry as they charge forward at their party of six with lances at the ready. “Find Swan!”

 

Emma meets John’s gaze and nods. “Arthur! Will! With me!” The three men draw their bows and Emma ducks back, arming herself and firing easily.

 

Once, twice, thrice and two guards are down and a third wounded, and the ambush’s attention is turned to her. She glances to Quinn, rounding her eyes in confusion, and he shouts, “Yeah, over here!” and takes off like the idiot daredevil he is.

 

The men follow and Quinn takes off, Emma just behind him, and she can hear low shouts as Little John and the others find target after target. The next time she glances back she can see only a few guards still in pursuit, the rest split up to fight back against the other Merry Men or have been forcibly dismounted.

 

But the last ones who are chasing them are too fast, too driven, and Emma knows at once that this is it. She can’t outride them on their hulking royal horses and they’re too far from the woods to disappear. Beetle can serve her only so well. “Quinn,” she orders, heart in her throat. “Quinn, you need to go on without me.”

 

“Don’t be an idiot, Emma.” Quinn scans the area behind them. “I’m not leaving you behind.”

 

“You’re the one they’re going to suspect if they catch up to us.” Her knees are sore from keeping up this pace, her head is pounding, and she can nearly feel Beetle’s strain as a tangible thing. “You’re the faster rider. Don’t worry about me.” She slaps his horse on its flank and Quinn shakes his head. “Go!”

 

Quinn goes, kicking up dust on the road as he hurtles off toward the woods, and Emma stops pushing Beetle, lets him stagger to a halt as three men come to a halt around her.

 

“He’s a girl,” one says disbelievingly. “Since when do the Merry Men ride around with their sweethearts?”

 

“Go after the boy,” the second says, and Emma recognizes him at once. He’s the dark-skinned knight from Aleida’s house, where she’d found Quinn and had nearly stabbed a soldier to death. He quirks an eyebrow at her, slow comprehension dawning in his eyes. “No,” he amends. “Stay here.”

 

He reaches into her saddlebag and retrieves her cloak, unfolds it and nods to himself as his companions gape at her. “King George will want to see this bandit,” he says, and he guides her firmly onto his horse.

 

* * *

She stabs him once on the road and loses her knife for it. It sticks into his armor and comes out with the tip bloody, and after that her hands are tied together in front of her around the horn of the pommel. The ropes are tight enough to rub them raw and she grimaces and holds them tight. “I’m not who you think I am,” she insists.

 

He laughs, low and amused, and it’s not quite mocking but not friendly, either. “I was there the day that you set the prince’s tree on fire. I know how you ride, Swan. And I know how you fight.” He rubs at his thigh, sounding rueful as he says it.

 

“You have no idea how I fight,” she says, dropping the pretense. “But I’ve seen you ride, too. You’re too good for this kingdom. They’re all brutes or drunkards and you’re…” She lowers her voice, struggling to mimic Regina’s huskiest tones. “So much more.”

 

It’s a feeble attempt at seduction but the knight is gallant enough not to comment on it. “Perhaps,” he acknowledges. “But this is where the Lady of the Lake summoned me.”

 

She knows the legends of the Lady and the places she keeps magic in their world. “To Lake Nostos.”

 

“You’ve heard of it.” He sounds surprised.

 

“I’ve been there.” It had been just after she’d run from an abusive master, a grubby-faced fourteen-year-old who’d been close to starvation. She’d staggered to its banks and fallen too soon, had been half dead with a siren’s song in her ears when a woman had risen from the depths of the lake and crouched down beside her. She had thought it a hallucination until cupped hands had tilted water into her mouth and she’d fallen asleep, waking up midday fully rejuvenated. Only later had she learned where she’d been and what power had been bestowed upon her. The Lady looks after dying children as a practice.

 

Her near-death experience had been all the drive she’d needed to head for the nearest town and smuggle herself into the woods with Little John, and now she’s recalling it all on the road to her certain execution. “The Lady of the Lake didn’t save you to be a common soldier,” she says on a hunch, and the knight startles behind her.

 

He laughs again, still unworried. “You are as quick-witted as they say, Swan.”

 

“Stop calling me that. My… my lover is Swan Hood. I am only a simple maiden.”

 

“I thought your lover was a queen.”

 

She scowls into the horse’s mane and refuses to think of Regina by her tree. The last time she’d seen her, Regina had been wearing a pair of long silver pants with a low cape around the back and she’d narrowed her eyes with irritation when she’d spotted Emma leaving. An apple had appeared in her saddlebag that evening and she hadn’t known where it had come from. “Maybe I have many lovers. None will appreciate you bringing me before King George.”

 

“Then I suppose they’ll have to rescue their fine damsel in distress.” He snickers and they turn onto a new road, George’s castle in the distance.

 

A pause, and then, “Are you shaking?”

 

“No,” she says through suddenly gritted teeth. “The horse is moving. I’m keeping astride it.” She isn’t afraid. She’s faced the Dark One himself, and King George is a lesser demon than _that_.

 

But she’s never been captured before, never caught before she could retreat into the woods, and while she has faith in her Men to find her and rescue her, a humiliated King George will be unpredictable. _I have a future_ , she reminds herself. _I’ve seen smoke and a boy and Regina. I’m going to live._

 

_The future is changeable_ , says a second voice within her, and she stares down at her tied hands and says nothing more for the rest of their trip.

 

The knight lowers her when they’re just outside the castle and she twists, unsheathes his sword with her hands still tied in front of her and swings it at his neck. But her wrist weakens at the slash, slowing the blow, and he raises one armored forearm to block it with ease. The other knights dismount and stand around her and she slumps.

 

“I’m sorry,” he says, and then her head is covered with a hood until she’s shoved forward into the throne room.

 

The throne room is nearly empty, only a few scattered knights within, but King George sits stiffly upon his throne and Prince James is lounging on the other, feet raised and knees bent as his eyes glaze over. He perks up only when he sees Emma. “A maiden?”

 

“What is the meaning of this, Leviathan?” King George demands. “The report was that you’d caught the Swan himself.”

 

She glances up at his contemptuous face and then stares back down again, tracing black-and-gold squares on the floor.

 

“She purports to be his lover,” the knight- Leviathan- explains. “But we found this within her saddlebag.” He retrieves the cloak, thin and grey and unmistakable, and both George and James sit straight in their seats. Emma keeps her head down in apparent fearful penitence. Her only option is to be no one more than a maiden, easily overlooked and forgotten in comparison with the inimitable Swan Hood. To be no one at all.

 

“A maiden?” James repeats. He barks out a laugh. “Well, this is embarrassing, Father. We’ve been played by a girl.”

 

George’s face is thunderous. “That remains to be seen. What’s your name, girl?”

 

And she tosses aside her resolution, made moments before, to be forgettable. Her eyes are defiant, her face feels wrought from steel, and she answers in a low tone with more than its share of accusation. “Emma, Your Majesty.”

 

“We have met before,” James says suddenly, but she doesn’t look away from the king, not for a moment. His face is tight and she can almost see the new awareness spinning through his head, pieces coming together to tell him exactly why she’s here. His gaze darts to a portrait on the wall, the king and queen with their newborn child, its blanket painstakingly painted blue. And then it returns to her, cold and impenetrable.

 

“Interesting,” the king says softly, his eyes glittering with dangerous intent, and she knows that she’s only made things worse. That he might have accepted her as only a lover of Swan Hood, as a girl who could never humiliate him with her identity, but as Emma Swan she is doomed before him.

 

Frustration burns within her, rejection that she should know better than to feel, and she turns her eyes back to the ground as his stare tears holes through her. “This girl is not Swan Hood,” he decides. “Escort her to the dungeons. We will have no public execution.” Emma trembles. “She is worthless to me.”

 

Something stings at her eyes and she keeps staring at the ground, a nothing before the king. Prince James says, “And the cloak?”

 

“Burn it,” George orders.

 

Emma glances up once before Leviathan takes her arm and pulls her along roughly, and it’s only to catch James’s gaze. He watches her, brow wrinkled as though he’s lost something today he can’t quite hold onto, and she glares at him with red eyes and hates, hates, hates them both for how little she matters.

 

Leviathan doesn’t leave her in the dungeon. “Haven’t you figured out that I’m not going to stop killing you?” she snaps at him, her words raw.

 

He watches her silently for a moment. “I’ve heard the rumors, too,” he says finally. “I’ve only been here for a year, but within the castle there were whispers.”

 

She slumps back against the floor of her cell, breathing in dusty air. “There are always whispers.”

 

Leviathan quirks an eyebrow. “Whispers that the king had made an exchange for a child that wasn’t his own. That the child had been a girl, not James.”

 

“It wasn’t so simple.” Emma had heard the story only once, from a noble who’d been exiled from George’s court just after she’d been handed off to him. _No one wanted you. You were only a placeholder._ “He wanted a boy, but he was double-crossed by the dark forces he’d dealt with. It took him three years and a witch before he discovered that…that I…” She coughs, choking on the dust and grime, and Leviathan moves to help her.

 

She thinks of attacking him, of clawing out his eyes and putting on too-large armor and waiting to be let free from her new prison. But she is vulnerable to kindness today. Instead, she leans against his hand and rises and says, “Do you really belong here?”

 

“No,” Leviathan agrees somberly, “I don’t.”

 

She brushes at the dirt on the wall. “King George’s witch discovered that I had a brother, and his contract for me could easily apply to him, too. So he made a second deal for James and tossed me over to one of his minions.”

 

“And in return, you’ve been a thorn on his side for years.” Leviathan shakes his head. “I can’t help but feel as though he had it coming.”

 

She wants to share his disdain, to laugh and try for her freedom again, but all she can see is cold eyes and _She’s worthless to me_ , reverberating through her skull. And maybe it’s been simple vengeance that has motivated her to this day, but she can’t deny the rush that she’s felt when she’s run from George’s castle, the sureness that if he ever knew who she was, it’d be a blow as strong as any of her petty thefts.

 

And instead, he’d dismissed her and burned her cloak and she doesn’t feel satisfied or defiant or anything more than empty, locked away and awaiting her doom. She doesn’t feel like she’d mattered at all, not to anyone. Not enough.

 

* * *

Leviathan leaves her alone and she sits in the darkness, listening to distant movements and voices until she drifts off, curled up on the dusty floor with her vest draped over her cold legs. When she’s roused it’s already night, the halls are lit with sparse candles, and Regina is standing beside Leviathan as he unlocks her cell.

 

Emma rises, something within her calming at Regina’s face. “Your queen has in fact come for you,” Leviathan says, grinning. “You’re only a runaway handmaiden, it seems.”

 

Regina inclines her head. “It’s imperative that I bring her back to my kingdom to discipline her. I assure you, she will never think to escape again.” She wraps a proprietary hand around Emma’s arm and glares at Leviathan when he raises a hood and makes to put it over Emma’s head. “Show some respect for King Leopold’s servants,” she says sharply.

 

Leviathan lowers the hood again, eyes lingering on the hand still on Emma’s.

 

“Does King George know about this?” Emma mutters under her breath. “Or is this more magic?”

 

Regina eyes Leviathan. “I arrived at the castle with my entourage and Prince James received me with this knight. The knight suggested that he not make enemy of Leopold.”

 

“Good advice,” Emma agrees, glancing back to him. “King George might execute you for it.” She thinks of the king’s soldiers demanding new taxes and quashing opposition and she feels sick again with the thought of them.

 

“I have heard call of a distant king who seeks the most valiant knights in the land. And I believe I have done in exile all I can for now.” Leviathan spares a smile for her. “You do noble work, Sw- _Emma_.”

 

“Being a handmaid,” Emma says dully.

 

“Of course.” He dips his head. “I would never think otherwise.”

 

Regina is glaring from one of them to the other, wary again, and Emma sways in place unsteadily. Regina returns to her, at once solicitous, and Emma murmurs, “Farewell, Leviathan.”

 

“Lancelot,” he corrects. They’re almost at the castle gates, a familiar carriage waiting before them. “Until we meet again.”

 

She musters up a wan smile and stumbles into the carriage behind Regina, the man disappearing into the night as Regina supports her up to a bench. “You look terrible.” Regina lifts Emma’s hands again to regard her scraped wrists. “I have a…” She fishes at a bag on the floor as the carriage lurches forward. “This salve should help.”

 

She applies it to Emma’s wrists in silence and Emma feels the cool lotion against them, providing numb relief. “Thanks.”

 

Regina circles her thumbs against Emma’s skin. “Are you all right?” Her dark eyes are sharp and worried and there is something in Emma’s heart after all, like a single drop of water in an empty glass.

 

“How did you know to come for me?” she asks.

 

Regina strokes her hands and Emma doesn’t pull away. “You had two messengers.”

 

“Two?”

 

“Quinn came straight for me. He terrorized Snow with that battle horse in the garden.” She smiles to herself. “And then Beetle at sunset.”

 

“Beetle went to you?” Beetle’s been lost before and he’s always found his way back to camp. Back home. Her next words catch on her suddenly tight throat.

 

Regina smiles, her eyes still on Emma’s arms. “It may be because of all those visits you keep making to the castle before you run off. No wonder he’s confused.”

 

“I’m not…I don’t _run off_ ,” she says, indignant. “I just happen to ride past your castle sometimes. I’m not there to visit you.”

 

“Same time almost every day.” Regina arches her eyebrows at her. “And you dawdle if I’m not in the garden.”

 

“How do you know that?” Emma asks curiously, and Regina falls silent at once, a flush darkening her cheeks. Emma leans back, closing her eyes. “I’ll take Beetle and go as soon as we get back to your castle.”

 

“Actually…” Emma opens an eye. Regina shrugs. “I had to request the use of the carriages from the king. If you don’t mind being my handmaiden for the night.”

 

“Uh. No. I guess not.” She smiles again, and it feels artificial on her face.

 

Regina doesn’t ask her if she’s all right again, but she moves across the carriage to sit beside her, her fingers untangling Emma’s mess of hair with gentle strokes as they rock back and forth with the coach.

 

* * *

The castle amenities are far more than Emma has ever had before, and she’s drawn a bath by Regina’s actual handmaids in her chambers and soaks for a long time, enough that when she finally emerges she feels as though it’s the first time she’s bathed in years. Heated water is a thing of luxury, a rare treat for a thief from the woods, and she dresses in one of Regina’s long shifts and barely recognizes herself in the mirror.

 

“That looks good on you,” Regina says when Emma walks into the bedroom. It’s huge and bare, only a bed alone near the balcony and a couch by the fire, and Regina sits on the latter wearing a matching shift, a parcel in her hands. “I should have you wear my clothes more often.” She raises the package. “I have something for you.”

 

“For me?” She brightens for what feels like the first time all day and sits beside Regina, untying the strings around the gift. “Did you steal for me again?”

 

Regina gives her a dark look. “Specially made with my father’s coin. I felt as though I owed you more payment for our journey to the Dark One’s castle.”

 

“You fed half the kingdom for a few days.”

 

“Yes, well.” Regina pulls her shoulders together in a shrug that doesn’t settle. Instead she remains in place, body pulled taut together. “I knew whatever I’d pay you with, you’d give away. I wanted you to have…something. Something to call your own.”

 

She sees dark green the color of the woods and pulls at it, the packaging falling to the floor as the fabric is revealed. It’s a cloak, soft and well spun, and there’s a sleek white swan embroidered across the back of it. “Your old cloak was wearing bare,” Regina murmurs, watching her face for reaction.

 

“King George burned my old cloak,” Emma says, and bursts into tears.

 

She doesn’t cry. She’s a young girl in a group of men, most at least ten years older than she, and she can’t allow herself to cry in their midst. She has to be strong, she has to be invincible, she can’t let some damned king affect her this much, but she’s still bent over and wracked with sobs, holding onto the only thing aside from Beetle that’s hers as tears slide onto it, darkening the fabric even more.

 

Gentle hands guide her to her feet and across the room, laying her down in Regina’s bed and covering her with a blanket. “I’m sorry,” Regina whispers in her ear, cradling her against her, and Emma tried to respond but her breaths are short and wet and she burrows into Regina, wraps her arms around her and holds on tightly as she quakes.

 

_She is worthless to me_. She doesn’t _care_ , she doesn’t care about that future she could have had or a cruel king who would have been a worse father than most of those she’d had. She doesn’t care about whoever had bargained her away in the first place or about James’s curiosity when he watches her. She doesn’t care about any of this or anything other than stealing things and her Men and Regina and there is nothing worth crying about. She doesn’t need to be informed of her own worth by worthless people.

 

And yet she feels fragile as she never has before, the armor around her heart weakened and thin and everything around her is heightened, every blow more powerful than ever. And Regina pressing kisses to her brow is like a hatchet buried within her, reminding her that even this is fleeting. That they don’t have anything that they thought they might.

 

She’s still in Regina’s arms once the sobs abate and she slides higher up until they’re facing each other, Regina’s eyes bright and sorrowful. “King George was supposed to be my father,” she whispers.

 

Regina brushes wet tendrils of hair from her face. “I know.”

 

“He would have been a horrible father. But I would have…I would have belonged somewhere.” Her hands are still on Regina’s hips, tracing patterns into her skin. “I could have had a brother.”

 

“You do have a brother. He’s about this tall, is obnoxiously relentless, goes by the name of Quinn?” Regina’s lips turn upward. “You have a family. A place where you belong.”

 

“Not with you.” And she knows that it’s more than that. That Regina is a volcano about to erupt, and she doesn’t have the luxury of staying nearby and waiting for it. That they aren’t two people who should be lying in a bed together right now, offering and receiving comfort.

 

But Regina is so close and they’re both in nightclothes, as exposed as they’ve ever been, and Emma can feel Regina’s body pressed to her, can feel the soft curve of Regina’s hips and the swell of their breasts too close.

 

Regina winces. “Can we just…” Her hand closes over Emma’s hand where it’s settled against her skin. “Can we pretend? If only for tonight.”

 

There’s finality in her eyes that puts Emma on edge, but her hands still move to press against Regina’s ass and she receives an answering gasp. “Okay,” she says, and then Regina is hovering above her, still so close and her palms cupping Emma’s face, the two of them wrapped in blankets and satin and lace.

 

Regina kisses her, gentle until she doesn’t stop and it’s harsher and harder again, until it’s as though Regina is trying to take something _out_ of her, to keep a tiny part of Emma as her own. And Emma surges forward, unwilling to give up without a fight, tugging Regina closer until there’s no distance left at all. Her dress is riding up as Regina’s does the same and one of Emma’s legs falls between Regina’s, her thigh pressing hard against Regina’s center.

 

Regina gasps. “Emma.” But she’s squirming more, pushing Emma’s dress higher until it’s past her waist and there’s nothing but her burrowed underclothes beneath it. “Emma, are we…?”

 

Her eyes are wild with need and fear and desire, hair splayed out above Emma, the buttons of her dress half undone already (had Emma done that? Yes, yes she had) and her breath is coming out in spurts and she’s breathtaking like never before, everything Emma had ever dreamed of. _If only for tonight._

 

Emma tugs at her dress and Regina shifts back for a moment to fumble with hers and then they’re kissing again. Regina’s hands are wandering, tentative as she explores Emma’s skin, and Emma kneads at Regina’s breast and swallows an answering groan.

 

She’s done this before, but not recently and not like this. Brief dalliances in the woods, quick stops at inns, not lying on Regina’s bed in a castle with the only girl she’s been able to think about in over a year wrapped around her, and she wants to take everything now, to be inside her and both of them hot with sweat and ecstasy. But Regina is careful with her motions, scratching patterns into Emma’s skin with an inexperienced touch, and she knows suddenly that this is Regina’s first time to be allowed to _enjoy_.

 

“Here,” she husks, moving her hands above Regina’s to guide her. “Harder.”

 

Regina lifts her up unexpectedly, squeezing and drifting lower as Emma’s pressed back against the pillows in a half-seated position. “I’ve never…” She bites down on a nipple and Emma jerks toward her as her tongue laves a ring around it. “I’m going to make you come,” Regina says firmly.

 

Emma breathes her name and then Regina is a whirlwind of energy, attacking her breasts again and again as Emma lies stretching out across the pillows, her own fingers drifting downward to squeeze and prod. She thumbs Regina’s clit once and Regina cries out, twisting and trapping Emma’s thigh between her own as she rides it. Her fingers are streaking up and down Emma’s stomach, dipping lower and lower with every move, and her teeth are at Emma’s ear now, tugging at the lobe and sending new waves of need to her belly.

 

Emma is murmuring senseless words at Regina as the last of their underthings are discarded, babbling in which she might be shouting curses or confessing her love, she isn’t sure. She can’t hear herself over the blood pumping in her ears, the need that suffuses her whole self, and Regina is silent, merciless in her determination, teeth attacking Emma’s neck and her fingers dipping into Emma’s folds each time Emma quiets down.

 

Regina’s fingers scrape at Emma’s clit and she hisses the other girl’s name, shoves her knee back harder into Regina’s center, and Regina growls with approval and buries her fingers inside Emma. She presses forward as she rubs against Emma, matching both rhythms and leaving Emma tingling and desperate for more.

 

“Do it,” she begs, and Regina thrusts again, adding a finger, in-out-in-out-in-out until her knuckles press firmly against Emma’s clit and she digs back into her an instant later. Sensation erupts to a crescendo, Emma arcing against Regina as she hits a peak, and she writhes helplessly as Regina keeps going, her own need forgotten as she concentrates on making Emma’s orgasm stretch for as long as possible.

 

It’s agonizing, Regina still everywhere at once, inexperienced but relentlessly stubborn as she presses harder and finds new stimulation and Emma feels as though she’s been thrashing against Regina’s fingers and lips and teeth for an eternity by the time she’s finally quenched, exhausted and spent and more awake than she’s ever been at the same time.

 

She pulls Regina back up to kiss the smug look off her face and then she’s twisting them around, propping Regina up on the pillows and licking a stray drop of sweat as it drips down Regina’s stomach. She’s still babbling, Regina still stony silent but for muffled moans, and she realizes in a flash exactly why it is that Regina has learned not to scream.

 

She spares a stray thought to any deities out there that the king die a painful death and returns to her goal, reaching for Regina’s legs and hooking them over her shoulders and Regina says, “Wait, what are you doing?” and then her tongue is inside Regina’s folds and Regina is gasping, “Oh. _Fuck_! Emma!” She comes with barely a tap, teeth gritted somewhere below Emma and eyes wide open, dilated and hungrier than they’d been even when she’d been looking at the Dark One’s wall of curses. “Emma!” Emma trades between fingers and tongue and Regina is helpless, uncontrolled, everything she’s never dared to be before.

 

It’s intoxicating just being in her presence and Emma’s already lost in this new reality of theirs.

 

* * *

It must be hours later when they stop moving together, Regina’s head on Emma’s stomach and Emma’s hand buried in Regina’s hair. They’ve thrown off Regina’s blankets and drawn the drapes so the air is cooling off their sweat-slicked bodies, little goosebumps coming and going when the wind breaks into the room. And Regina presses a kiss to the inside of Emma’s thigh and breathes, “Tonight.”

 

It emerges like a death knell. Emma twists a lock of hair between her fingers. “What happens tomorrow?”

 

“Rumple told me you were a liability.” Regina doesn’t move to look up at her. “He says I’ll never be strong enough if I’m still clinging to love.”

 

“You’re still studying with him? Isn’t he kind of sore about us stealing that curse?”

 

Regina laughs hoarsely. “He informed me that I’d have to be more valuable than it. But…he’s right about us.”

                                                                                                      

“He doesn’t know anything about us.” She’s emboldened by a night where they’ve both been clear about their desires, where they’ve had nothing between them- not kings or magic or fear- and they’ve been glorious for it.

 

“He knows love is weakness.” Regina’s voice sounds distant and now she’s gazing up at Emma, moving from her embrace to face her. “Isn’t it?”

 

And Emma can’t deny that. She’s never known much of love but what she has been given has been snatched away, has left her helpless and alone time after time until tonight, staring at a girl who she already knows will be the source of even more pain. “Maybe so,” she murmurs, and she thinks of King George and of masters she’d fought back against, about bitterness and resentment and the way Regina looks at Snow White. “But so is hate. It’s not going to save you.”

 

“It’s all I can afford to be, Emma.” Regina’s hand lingers over her sex. “We need to stop this. I can’t…I can’t find reasons to seek you out. You need to stop riding by the palace.”

 

Emma raises her head to glare down at her, the ultimatums chafing at her. She feels afloat, trapped on a raft while Regina pushes her free and into the sea. And it makes her angry even through her resignation. “You can’t stop me.”

 

“I’d hoped you wouldn’t keep me from my tree. But if I must…” Regina closes her eyes. “You must know that any path with me would end badly for you. This can’t come as a surprise.”

 

Well. Yes, she’d known that, had skirted away from Regina dozens of times with that awareness strong in her mind. But it had never felt as final as it does now, Regina pushing her away oh-so-gently as she speaks of power as though it’s her only option.

 

Maybe it is. Maybe it’s all Regina has chosen to aspire to now. And Emma’s had the bad fortune to fall for someone she’d known has other priorities, who’d kissed her and yanked out her heart and she should have known then. She _had_ known then, still knows now, but it’s being driven home by Regina for the first time ever and that hurts all the more. It’s the last tiny bit of control she’s felt that she has over this- over _them_ \- the awareness that she could accept Regina, magic and darkness and all, and Regina would come to her. And now she’s lost that, too.

 

_Love is weakness_. She pulls away from Regina and drops her hand from her hair as she rolls over to face the balcony. “It doesn’t,” she says. “It’s a big kingdom. I’m sure we won’t even see each other again.”

 

“I’m sure,” Regina echoes. She sounds…suddenly tiny, as though all her energy has been drained with Emma’s declaration. Emma doesn’t dare look back. “So this is it.”

 

“This is what you want,” Emma shoots back. “At least we’ll have the memories.” _If only for tonight_. This is what tonight had been for Regina. Memories. She rolls over to face her for a moment, eyes running over Regina’s body for long enough that Regina is squirming and flushing, and then pulls back abruptly. “I should go. Where are my clothes?”

 

“They were taken in for washing. If you’ll just wait until sunup–“

 

“That’s okay. I’ll just…” She pulls open the drapes. “I’ve never jumped out of a castle naked, but there’s a first time for everything.”

 

“Emma. Stop being a child.” There’s the queen again, aristocratic and condescending as she beckons for her. “I’m sure you’ll find something suitable in my closet. And…” She bends to the floor from her bed and Emma tracks the arch of her spine against her back as Regina reaches for the puddle of green fabric beside her.

 

Emma takes it and Regina says, almost beseechingly, “We don’t have to be strangers to each other. I’m trying to…I don’t know how I can be who I need to be when half the time I’m thinking of you. There was a time when I thought that love could solve everything for me, but I was naïve. I love you and…and nothing has changed.” She gestures at the room around her. “There’s no way out of this prison until the king is dead and Snow White gone. And I can’t…” Her voice trails off. “You make me weak.”

 

_I could make you strong_. Emma has traveled to distant lands, places where King Leopold’s name has never even touched. She’s met strangers from Agrabah and Camelot and even Atlantis, has heard of lands where lions rule and where the whole kingdom is ice. There are so many worlds Regina could run to with her, if only she’d desire it.

 

But she doesn’t. And that’s the crux here. Regina can spin it whichever way she wants, can see this castle as her tomb- and perhaps it is, perhaps without Emma it will be- but she sees only one escape because she’s already bitter, already angry, already hungering for the power that the Dark One teases her with. This is Regina’s decision, and she’s chosen power.

 

And Emma has no place within that. “I do love you,” Regina says again, empty words that are paltry comfort, and Emma pulls on the nightgown Regina had been wearing, tears a line up its seam to her thighs, and climbs down from the balcony, the cloak she’d been gifted with still under her arm.

 

She doesn’t look back, and she forces herself to think of anything other than Regina’s lost eyes and the scent of Regina on the nightgown and the sound Regina makes when she comes, until her heart is hard and determined and there’s only Beetle beneath her and the Merry Men ahead and nothing, nothing that matters behind.

**END PART I**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said that there would be one more chapter in this part and there will be one next week! It's going to be an interlude, though, somewhere about halfway through the first two parts, and should be regular chapter length. 
> 
> Oh, and in case you're wondering, I'm not planning on splitting up the parts into separate fics- they'll all be contained within this one.


	8. Chapter 8

The sky is darkening and the first trickle of rain is beginning as the hooded figure rides down Swan’s Road, head down and barely visible even in the light of the full moon shining through the clouds. It’s nightfall and this storm has swept in too quickly, a worrying turn that has the men driving a carriage down the road glancing up every few moments.

 

The younger one squints ahead. “We may have larger problems than the storm,” he says, gesturing toward the green-cloaked rider on a palomino horse bearing down on them. “Isn’t that…?”

 

“Swan Hood.” The older guard shakes his head knowingly. “He himself hasn’t stopped a royal carriage in three years. It seems that even Swan respects King Leopold’s benevolent rule enough to spare him.”

 

The rider slows for a moment, close enough that he must have heard them, and then he breaks back into a gallop as he rides past them just as there’s a _thunk_ against the side of the carriage. They halt immediately, the younger guard disengaging from the carriage to ride around it and inspect the damage.

 

“Are you sure it’s out of respect?” he calls, frowning at the mark. There’s an arrow embedded into King Leopold’s coat of arms, directly in the center.

 

Behind them, Swan Hood rides on, sparing not a glance back at the carriage as one of its occupants peers out the window after him. The other sits in silence, hands flat against her lap and face flat with what must be boredom, and there’s a low howl nearby.

 

* * *

  


The horse slows to a near-halt ten minutes from them. It snuffles at a small bush at the edge of the forest for a moment before it maneuvers around it, twisting through what seems to be an obstacle course of tree and rock as though it’s done it dozens of times before. Soon a path is revealed and the horse quickens again, trotting through the underbrush toward the place where the woods are deep enough that men have lost their way for days within it.

 

The rain thickens and drips through the trees, hitting Swan Hood in the nose as the thief looks up; and Emma shakes her head and pulls off her hood, wiping her nose and squinting into the lantern-bright darkness. “Men?”

 

They chorus a response, half already on horses, and Emma nods to them. It’s been a long journey down from ogre country, where she’d been delivering food and weapons to lords too impoverished to purchase them, and she’d parted from Sir Maurice’s escorts when she’d seen the clouds overhead. They’re warm and dry in a tavern in King George’s land, and she thinks longingly of it for only a moment before she turns back to the Merry Men.

 

“We ride out in one hour. Go in twos or threes, leave no man behind. There will be dozens of carriages trapped in this storm.” She glances to her most reliable men. “You have this?” Little John, Will, Arthur, Alan. One by one, they incline their heads in acquiescence.

 

She clears her throat. “Make sure whatever you confiscate won’t keep these people from getting home. No horses, no lanterns, and leave them enough to pay for a place to sleep tonight.”

 

“Are we babysitters for the rich now?” comes the mocking voice, singsong and bold enough to challenge her when she’s taking charge. She finds Quinn, grinning at her as he waits for her to snap.

 

She rolls her eyes. “We’re outlaws, not criminals, Quinn. We’re not leaving anyone helpless in a storm like this one.”

 

“Sure.” He leans back on his horse as the rest of the men disperse, preparing their steeds or finding their weapons as they group together. It’s a familiar one, straight from King Leopold’s stables if her suspicions are correct, but she chooses not to comment on that. “So I’m with you, right?”

 

“I ride alone.”

 

“But you just said-“

 

She cuts him off. “Perks of being in charge. I do just fine without a partner. Why don’t you head out with John?”

 

Quinn stares at her for a long moment, and she can’t read his frustration at all. She’d withdrawn from him once he’d been fully accepted within the Merry Men, and he isn’t even the youngest boy they have anymore. There’s a set of runaways, the second and third sons of a noble from King Michael’s court, and a boy archer who’d impressed Arthur enough to be invited in. Quinn is one of the men now, and she’s…

 

She’s their leader. Not Quinn’s friend or big sister or mentor. She doesn’t _do_ any of that. And it’s been years and he still refuses to accept that.

 

Finally he dismounts and stalks off to retrieve his bow and she practices idly with her own, riding past a target and knocking off its head with the same force as she had impaled Leopold’s coat of arms earlier that night. She keeps her distaste for the king private, allowing herself only the same public disdain as she displays for George, and if it’s his head she’s imagining when she aims, she doesn’t say.

 

Quinn returns, tossing her a loaf of bread. “We had venison for dinner. But, you know, you’re probably too good for that, too.” He’s teasing but his eyes are dark and hurt and she swallows and offers him a smile.

 

“Thanks, kid.”

 

“I’m the same age you were when you started calling me that,” he mumbles, but he calms at the familiarity of it and offers her a halfhearted smirk. She relaxes. Something about Quinn’s resentment always has her avoiding, guilty for irrational reasons that shouldn’t be her problem.

 

“Yeah, but you’re still a–“

 

There’s a shout from the sentry and she stops, springing to action. “You! What are you doing here?” Barric demands. Emma pulls on her hood and rides to the edge of their camp, frowning at the man she recognizes crouched at the border.

 

He’s an occasional visitor to the Enchanted Forest, though his home is far deeper in than even their camp. The Merry Men have taken to calling him Runs-With-Wolves because of the rumors that he’d been raised by the animals, and he’s passed them by from time to time while he hunts. He’s never approached the camp, and Emma gestures Will over to call, “What brings you here, Runs-With-Wolves?”

 

The man looks up, eyes bloodshot under damp hair. “There’s a carriage overturned a little way down the road,” he says gruffly. “One of King Leopold’s. Surrounded by wolves. There’s a girl inside.” Emma’s stomach drops somewhere past her toes. “Not my pack,” he adds, warning in his voice, and then he runs off, vanishing as quickly as he’d come.

 

“A damsel in distress, eh?” Will smirks. “I think I’ll go down there. They say that young Snow White grows more beautiful each day.”

 

Emma shoves him. “Don’t be disgusting, she’s a child.”

 

“Not for much longer.” He wiggles his eyebrows and she’s ready to ignore him when he says thoughtfully, “Of course, it could be the queen in there.”

 

“I doubt it,” Emma says coolly.

 

Will laughs. “It’s true, she’d never ride among the peasants like that. I’ve never heard talk of her venturing past the castle grounds.” Emma presses her lips together to keep from responding. Nothing good comes from conversations of the elusive Queen Regina.

 

“Bitch doesn’t care about the people,” Barric grunts. “Her family’s been after the throne for years. Her mother was engaged to the king before her, did you know that?”

 

“I’ve heard nothing good about her. She’s probably best off with the wolves.” They share a hearty laugh and Emma stares into the campfire, still burning through the dripping rain.

 

When she looks away, she sees Quinn watching them, eyes sharp and as irritated as she doesn’t allow herself to be. “I’m off,” she says abruptly, pulling on Beetle’s reins. “Assemble your team and quit your yammering. Gossip is for old spinners, not Merry Men.” She spins around, gratified at the way Barric jumps out of her way, and rides back the way she’d come.

 

The forest is quiet but for the sound of rain as it breaks through the trees. It’s the kind of weather Emma usually likes when she’s alone, traipsing through the underbrush without her hood and letting the water wash over her face. But today she’s on edge, her stomach still churning and her head hot with thoughts of what she might find where she’d ridden past the coach earlier, and she’s so deep in her reverie that she doesn’t notice that she’s being followed until they’re nearly at the edge of the woods.

 

And when she does, she knows exactly who it is without turning. “Go away, Quinn.”

 

“I know you’re going after Regina,” he retorts. “I’m not letting you go alone.”

 

She doesn’t bother denying it. “ _You_ don’t _let_ me do anything. You go back to the Men and help some people who actually need it.”

 

“You think you can do anything, don’t you?” Quinn demands. “Like you can just…pretend you’re not one of us and no one will object. Little John preaches about brotherhood and family but Swan Hood herself won’t deign to join the family.”

 

“I’m not one of the family,” Emma says shortly. “I know you think that we have some kind of bond because you’re the only one I’ve ever recruited, but–“

 

“Oh, come on. Don’t give me the bullshit pity talk.” Quinn’s horse clomps hard on some branches and pulls up beside her. “I _rode_ with you. For months. I know more about you than anyone there, and I know why you do what you do.”

 

“Do you.” She presses a hand to her temples, massaging them from a quickening headache and peering through the trees for silver and black.

 

“I know you spent one night in Regina’s castle and then stopped going there. And she never came back here. I know you’ve been avoiding me ever since then.”

 

She stops. “Look, that wasn’t about her.” She doesn’t think about that day, about Regina and James and George and everything that had gone wrong then. She doesn’t think about a girl queen whispering the words _love is weakness_ that had rung true then and have guided her since. “You were ready to ride with the group. You didn’t need me anymore.”

 

Quinn glares at her, eyes probing deep enough that she shifts uncomfortably. Quinn has always been more intuitive than she is. She can see lies and discomfort but he finds them even when nothing is there, and he still watches her like he had when they’d first met and he’d known at once who she was. “Shutting everyone out doesn’t stop you from getting hurt, Emma.”

 

She jolts on her horse and rides faster, pressing Beetle toward the road, and in the silence that follows she can finally make out the sound of low growling.

 

And then a girl’s voice. “Help! Please, someone help me!” It’s shrill and terrified and Emma quickens her pace, recognizing it at once. “Help!”

 

She pulls to a halt at a place where the woods are high above the road, falling into a valley of gnarled vines and thornbushes just below. The carriage is down there, turned on its side and perched tightly between two trees as oversized wolves prowl below it. And poking her head out of the opening now at the top of the carriage is Snow White, eyes wide with terror as she surveys the animals lying in wait. “Help!” she shouts again, and relief and disappointment suffuse Emma as she rides down to her.

 

She remembers halfway through that she’s still wearing her cloak and she yanks her hood down and shakes it off. “I’m coming!” she calls down, and Snow looks up at her with dazed gratitude.

 

The wolves look up, too, and there’s something almost intelligent in how they survey her, turning as a pack to move up the hill at her. Three remain behind while four advance, growling lowly, and she remembers in a flash- _not my pack_ \- as one of them leaps forward with dizzying speed, jaw snapping at her jugular-

 

And then she’s shoved aside, pushed off of Beetle as Quinn’s horse rears, and she rolls down the hill and jumps for the lowest branch of the trees holding the carriage, swinging above the wolves and kicking one in the snout as she finds a notch on the trunk and pulls herself upward. She lands in a crouch on a stronger branch and squints through the rain as she draws her bow, firing at a wolf as Quinn’s horse and Beetle kick at them valiantly.

 

And then…as quickly as they’d come, they slink backward, one wolf- not the largest, not the smallest, and she’d have never pegged it as the alpha- leading them to the side of the clearing. They don’t retreat, just wait, yellow eyes fixed on her bow, and Quinn rides to her to join her. “See?” he pants. “Told you you needed a partner.”

 

“You never said anything like that,” she sniffs, but her attitude drops when her eyes do and she sees his hand. “Quinn!” It’s a mangled mess and she replays the moment he’d pushed her away again, imagines the wolf snarling too close to the hand that had saved her. “You idiot. Why’d you…” She watches the wolves again, her voice trailing off with a dread she can’t name. 

 

Quinn grins at her again, his horse below them snorting as it lifts its muzzle toward the jammed carriage. “You don’t have to go at it alone all the time. The Men would die for you, you know? Or get…really fucking bitten up.”

 

He waves his hand and she grabs it in midair, holds it still as she tears off a piece of her tunic and wraps it tight to keep the wound from exposure. It doesn’t redden the cloth, doesn’t appear to be oozing anything at all, and she tightens the strip of cloth and tries not to focus on the building worry in her throat.

 

Then there’s a voice above them, worried and small. “Thank you for coming for me.” Snow White, lips trembling as she speaks. “I will have my father the king give you the best medical attention in the land. We have a family fairy, and…” She looks down into the coach again. “Please just help us return to King Leopold’s castle.”

 

“Us?” Emma echoes, helping Quinn climb before she clambers up to where the carriage is wedged in. It doesn’t shake, securely trapped, and she crawls across the side of it to peer in. And just like that, three years of carefully erected shields come crashing down.

 

“My stepmother and me,” Snow clarifies. “I think she…she hit her head when we fell. She hasn’t moved since.” She wraps her arms around herself, looking very young and frail. “I don’t know what to do.”

 

Regina is laid out across the side- now bottom- of the carriage, and it looks as though Snow has tried wrapping her in blankets. Her face is troubled, even in sleep, and Emma reaches out with an instinctive hand to brush her hair from her face. “Regina,” she whispers, pressing the backs of her fingers to her neck. Her pulse is strong, and she lets out a relieved breath.

 

Emma hasn’t seen her from close by since that night when they’d parted ways. She’s ridden past her, spotted her across crowded balls, and done her best to avoid any contact with her at all. Regina had made her too open, too easily hurt, and she’d vowed to stay far from her.

 

And here she is, almost exactly the same. Flawless skin two shades darker than most of her kingdom, full lips as inviting as they’d ever been, her dress a dark blue where it’s spread out around her and tightened above her chest. Emma’s tracing her jaw before she can think about what she’s doing, a thumb brushing against Regina’s lips. They twitch, a soft breath escapes, and a voice from behind her says, “Do you know Regina?”

 

Snow White has descended, Quinn behind her, and he raises an eyebrow as Emma stutters. “I…no…?”

 

“You said her name.” Snow folds her arms. She’s young but no child anymore, naiveté all but gone from her eyes in that moment. “Who are you?”

 

“I’m…Emma,” she says finally, thinking back quickly. “I don’t know your stepmother. Not well. We met once years ago. At a masquerade ball.” Quinn looks disbelieving but Snow’s brow furrows, the memory still there.

 

“You danced with me,” she remembers. “None of the older girls ever danced with the children, and I was forced to endure boys stepping on my feet and pretending to be charming.” Snow laughs lightly. “But you said you were a princess.”

 

Quinn snickers. Emma narrows her eyes at him. “Yes,” she agrees. “Only a minor one. No kingdom for me.”

 

Snow’s eyes shine with something like hero worship and Emma squirms under it. “And you still ride like this in the woods? Saving those in danger? How noble. And you’ve found love while doing so!”

 

Quinn’s smirk finally drops and Emma does _not_ look down at Regina again. “What, him? He’s my brother.”

 

“Oh,” Snow deflates.

 

Emma turns back to Quinn. “You stay down here. I’m going to go see if I can chase off a few of those wolves before we get out of here. Try to wake Regina up in the meantime.” She offers him a significant look. Regina’s magic will succeed where her bow fails, and with the wolves still hovering below, her bow failing seems a likely ending for them.

 

She climbs onto the case that Snow had placed under the opening at the top of the carriage and hauls herself out, drawing her bow again. The rain is still heavy and she can barely see, barely make out a set of glowing eyes just a few feet below them, but her arrow flies true and there’s a furious howl in response. And another. And another, the whole pack growling their fury right back at her.

 

“They don’t seem like normal wolves,” Snow whispers from behind her.

 

She shakes her head, refusing to contemplate the truth of that statement. “No.”

 

“They charged our carriage as we traveled. One tore out Gerard’s throat and another bit through the ropes that tied our horses to the coach,” Snow says, climbing back onto the carriage. “Then the others rammed us and we went flying. They were…smart.”

 

Emma stares up at the trees, at the space where they part just enough for her to spot the full moon, and Quinn’s hand flashes through her mind again. “They fall from my arrow just as any animal does.”

 

“I have…” Snow raises a bow of her own. No. Quinn’s bow. “I don’t know how to shoot. But he said he wouldn’t be much good with it right now.”

 

“No,” Emma agrees grimly. She scoots around the girl, helps her draw back her first arrow. “You want to use three fingers, like that. Good. Hold it steady. Lift and draw.” The arrow flies forward, carried high enough by the wind whipping around them that Beetle whinnies in protest from his spot at the top of the hill, and Snow slumps. “No, that was a good start,” she murmurs. Snow has good posture, even crouched up a tree, and she could be a skilled archer given time. “Keep going. Aim for their eyes.”

 

“I can’t see anything.” Snow squints out into the night. “Wait, maybe…” Her second arrow thwacks into a tree, but she gets a responding growl from nearby. She sighs, sitting back as she strings another arrow, Emma guiding her again. “I’m sorry.”

 

“You’re doing fine.” Emma hits another wolf, narrowly skimming past Quinn’s horse in the process. The wolves aren’t attacking the horse, even though he remains just below the carriage, waiting for his master to return to him. It’s almost as though they know that the horse is their bait, the quartet’s only possible escape worth leaving the carriage for.

 

The wolves are moving now, shifting each time an arrow flies through the air, and Emma concentrates on tracking them as Snow begins again, “We were supposed to travel to my father’s summer palace. I haven’t been there in years.”

 

Emma bites back a sigh. Snow is chatty as only a princess can be, years of being told that her thoughts are important too strong for deterrent now. She aims again, noticing that she’s already running low on arrows. “No?”

 

“Not with Regina.” Snow sounds wistful, suddenly, and Emma peeks over at her. “When I met Regina, I thought that she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.”

 

“We’ve all been there,” Emma mutters, and Snow says, “What?”

 

Emma flashes her a bland smile. “Go on.”

 

“I loved her right away. And then she wanted to be my mother.” Emma purses her lips but doesn’t speak. “But lately…she’s been so distant. Sad, even. I don’t know what I did wrong.” Snow looks crestfallen and Emma thinks about telling her. About explaining what _wanted to be my mother_ had meant for Regina, of the empty-faced girl she’d first met in a carriage on the road beside them. Of Regina, hungry-eyed before a wall of curses.

 

She shares nothing that isn’t hers instead, and Snow says, “I couldn’t believe that she agreed to come with me this time. We were going to be friends again, like we’d been back when we’d first met. And now this.” She waves her hand through the rain and wind that whips around them. “I just wanted her to be happy.”

 

She sounds so earnest about it, so confused and lost about what Regina has become, that Emma feels an unwanted surge of camaraderie with her. Snow doesn’t look much younger than Emma had been when she’d first discovered Regina’s magic the hard way, when Regina had been transformed and Emma had stared up at the sky and wondered where they’d gone wrong. And maybe Snow is guilty- and ignorant as only a royal can be, wrapped up in her own world where Regina matters only when it comes to her relationship with Snow- but Snow _cares_ , cares about a woman Emma knows had once loathed her.

 

And she feels an odd sort of relief at knowing that there is someone who cares about Regina to begin with. Not her. Never again her. “A trip away sounds like fun,” she murmurs. “For both of you.” Regina far from King Leopold, far from the bitterness of the palace that cages her, perhaps finding common ground with Snow White at last. And Snow is only a child who doesn’t understand what she’s done wrong. “Maybe you’ll get there after the storm passes.”

 

“I hope so,” Snow says, firing her last arrow. The wind catches it and it twists in the air and falls to the ground without ever finding its mark. She sighs. “I should go back in. Check on Regina and see if she’s awakened.”

 

“I’ll come with you.” Emma casts one last wary glance at the wolves below. One snarls in response, and it sounds almost like a laugh.

 

* * *

  


Regina is still motionless on the floor, and Snow finds a blanket in the case and wraps it around her, tucking it in under her back. She leans back onto her knees, smoothing down the blanket solicitously, and Emma swallows and feels uncomfortable for them both in that moment.

 

She turns away to check on Quinn, who’s seated cross-legged in the corner a few feet away. He’s removed the wrapping from his hand and is staring at his palm. “Look,” he says, lifting his hand to show her.

 

There’s no blood anymore, no open wound, and the skin is all but knitted together. “Quinn,” she breathes, reaching out to hold it. It’s smooth and calloused in her grasp, a faint scar all that remains.

 

“I don’t know what’s happening to me.” He sounds miserable, properly afraid for the first time since she’d met him, and her heart hurts and hurts and hurts as she cradles his hand in hers.

 

“We’re going to wake up Regina,” she says. “She’s got to…she’ll know what to do.” Emma has balked at using magic before but she can’t now, not when Quinn is healing too quickly and she knows already how wrong this is all going to be. “You’re going to be fine, I swear.”

 

She glances back to Snow and Regina and makes contact with brown eyes half-lidded as they turn to her. “Is this…” Regina rasps. “Are you real?”

 

“Of course we are,” Snow says brightly, and Regina’s eyes seem to drop again with that sound. She holds Emma’s gaze, though, a hand reaching across the bottom of the carriage to them.

 

Emma shifts over and takes it, their fingers tangling like they’d never fallen apart. “Heard you were having some trouble in my woods,” she says softly. Her face cracks as quickly as she’d tried to don a mask of indifference, and Regina watches her in silence, eyes roving from side to side.

 

She sits up and Emma pulls her hand away. “There are wolves out there,” she says, brisk and businesslike. “Snow and I tried to ward them off, but we’ve been less than successful. Maybe you could…” Snow watches expectantly, and Emma chews on her lip. “Uh. Help me survey the scene,” she finishes lamely.

 

Regina blinks again, still dazed. “Right. Yes.” She follows Emma out of the carriage, obedient, and sits beside her on top of it.

 

Emma talks quickly, half an eye on the door to the carriage. “I think they’re wolfmen. Children of the moon. They’re the ones who overturned your carriage to begin with. I’ve hit a few of them, but I don’t think any of them were downed by my arrows. Certainly not Snow’s.” She laughs, but there’s no humor in her voice.

 

Regina says, “You aren’t wearing my cloak.”

 

“What?”

 

“My gift to you. What happened to it?”

 

“ _That’s_ what you’re worried about?” But Regina faces her, eyes deadly serious, and Emma sighs and says, “It’s on Beetle. I left it behind when I realized that Snow was in the carriage.” She nods up the hill where Beetle still waits, wandering under the dry shade of a thick tree as he nibbles on bush berries. “You’re welcome, by the way. For coming for you two. I think Snow was a few minutes of panic from trying to jump and run.”

 

“Pity,” Regina mumbles, and Emma tosses her a warning glare. Regina snorts. “Have you turned moralizing since we last met?”

 

“I was always moral!” Emma says indignantly. “I mean, I was an idiot thief, but I wasn’t going around kidding about little girls being killed by wolves.” She thinks about Quinn again and her fists clench and she breathes out so hard and fast that it emerges as a sob.

 

Regina pauses. “Emma.” She’s always said Emma’s name like that, caught between a prayer and a sigh, and Emma’s skin pebbles into goosebumps as it washes over her. “How have you been?” She sounds suddenly guilty, as though the question is more than she should have asked.

 

And judging from their last conversation and _I’ll never be strong enough if I’m still clinging to love_ , perhaps it is. “Can’t complain. Robbing the rich blind and giving it away. The usual.”

 

“I’ve heard tell of the Merry Men offering aid to towns ravaged by ogres or dragons or witches.” Regina is distant, not quite approving but not disdainful, either. There’s an odd disconnect to her now, and Emma wonders if she’s been totally isolated from everyone but her husband and stepdaughter and the Dark One in the past three years.

 

She tries to think as little as she can about Regina at her apple tree, all alone with no visitors, and she hasn’t allowed herself to return to see since. “I stopped antagonizing King George,” she admits, drawing her knees up to her chin. “It was just…it didn’t feel good anymore.” She remembers a time when she’d been hot with righteous anger and desire for vengeance and it had felt so good to lash out, to let King George know exactly who she’d been.

 

And who she’d been had been so wrapped up in that identity that when he’d rejected it altogether, it had crushed her. And she’d finally stopped building her identity on someone else’s reactions. “This feels good,” she says. It’s a slow process, understanding who she is, but the one thing she knows about herself is that she doesn’t want anyone to grow up as she did, neglected and hungry in houses full of emaciated children. She doesn’t want to see anyone left behind because their families can’t feed them.

 

Regina’s fingers brush against her arm, so tentative that she barely feels them. “You’re different,” she says, and her face is unreadable. The rain has flattened her hair and there are little wet droplets on her eyelashes that Emma wants to kiss away and hates herself for it.

 

Emma flushes, all her confidence gone in an instant. “Sorry to disappoint.”

 

“You don’t…” Regina shakes her head, pulling away, and turns back to the ground below them. “Wolfmen, you said?”

 

“How’s magic going for you?” Emma presses. It’s abrupt and probably rude, but Regina looks amused when she goes on. “Have you given anyone warts lately? Turned any people into mice?”

 

“Only the irritating ones.” But Regina is smiling at her for the first time in three years and it still makes Emma’s skin burn and her heart quake. She hates being this vulnerable, this easy to hurt all over again, and she can’t put up shields like Regina does, smoky glass walls that hide her true face from the world. She puts them around her heart instead, carefully building them even as they crash down, and she ducks her head and watches the wolves prowling instead. “It’s…it’s something to hold onto.”

 

“Quinn was bitten,” Emma says. “By one of the wolves.” Even just the admission leaves her choked again, terrified of something she’s afraid to name.

 

But Regina’s eyes widen, almost imperceptibly, as she understands exactly what Emma can’t say. “Quinn?” she echoes. “Your Quinn?”

 

Not her Quinn, not since she’d withdrawn, and an angry part of her wants to blame Regina’s words for it but it’s Emma’s fault, Emma’s fault because love _is_ weakness and she loves Quinn anyway but she’s too weak to save him. But there’s nothing she can do anymore but watch this new horror unfold. “Can you help him?” she whispers, but Regina is already shaking her head.

 

“I’m sorry, Emma. Magic can’t change nature.” She squeezes her hands against the fabric of her dress and then she’s whirling around, shooting fireballs at the underbrush until it’s roaring beneath them, until the horse below them is nickering with fear and the wolves have scattered. Regina snatches at air with her fingers and the fire is gone as quickly as it had come, Emma still agape, and she doesn’t even realize that they’ve disentangled from the trees and are floating to the ground until there’s a soft thump and Regina climbs down.

 

“Rocinante!” She runs to the horse and the horse neighs in approval, trotting to her and nuzzling her shoulder. “I’d thought you were gone forever. You stole my horse?” she asks Emma, reaching up to brush her fingers through his mane.

 

“I did,” Quinn says, poking his head out of the carriage doors. His smirk lacks its usual bite and his face has taken on an unnatural pallor. Emma shudders. “I was going to give him back eventually. I had to tie him up at night to keep him from running back to you.”

 

“Good boy.”  Regina rubs Rocinante’s neck approvingly and he snorts again, passive under her touch. Emma knows the feeling.

 

She scowls at herself and turns back to Quinn, inspecting his hand again. A scar remains, jarringly white against pink healed skin, and he flinches when she touches it. “Sorry,” they both say at once, and when Emma glances over at Regina, her shoulders are stiff and she isn’t looking at them.

 

Fortunately, it’s right then that Snow emerges at last from the carriage. “How…what happened to the wolves? How did we land on the ground?” she says, face bright with wonder. “Was it fairies?”

 

An immediate excuse, freely given. “It must have been,” Regina says, her own face giving nothing away. “We came out here and everything was silent but the rain.”

 

“The carriage slid down,” Emma offers. “It was very gradual. Might’ve been doing it all along.”

 

“Wow.” Snow wants to believe and she does it willingly, with all the faith of a girl who’s never been given reason to lose that. She doesn’t see what lurks behind Regina’s face, doesn’t see any hate or bitterness beyond _I just wanted her to be happy_ and maybe she’d stripped away that happiness but she doesn’t know it. She’s not an innocent but she has no idea of that, and Emma is at once protective of them both.

 

Because if Regina ever hurts this girl, there will be no coming back from it for either of them. Emma’s learned all the harsh lessons of what happens when you devote your whole life to vengeance against someone else, remembers how empty she’d felt when it had backfired. And she doesn’t have any say in Regina’s life anymore- if she ever did- but her heart clenches up and refuses to beat properly at the thought of Regina avenging herself in the ways that the Dark One is known for.

 

No one in this clearing is going to make it out unscathed.

 

“Hey, kid,” she says, and Quinn blinks up at her. “Not you. Snow. Want to help me get my horse down to the road?”

 

“Sure.” Regina’s eyes follow them with suspicion, and Emma nods surreptitiously to Quinn. Regina shakes her head but Emma can see the glow of magic as she bends down beside him, taking his hand in hers. “I’ve never really done this kind of exploring,” Snow apologizes, stumbling over a bramble and letting out a little moan of pain.

 

“Let’s hope you never have to.” She shudders at the idea of this pampered princess out in the woods on her own, struggling with a bow and eating poisoned berries. “Listen,” she says abruptly as they make it up the hill. “You’ve got to be careful, okay? If you ever…if your dad isn’t around, if he dies or vanishes or anything…don’t trust anyone except yourself.”

 

“I’ll still have Regina,” Snow points out, still so trusting that Emma wants to shake her and shout at all of them for being so wrapped up in their own lives that they don’t dare to look outside. Regina’s suffering is as concealed as Regina’s hate and Snow sees neither and it’ll be their downfall together.

 

“Anyone except yourself,” she enunciates, and Snow stares at her like she doesn’t understand until her brow knits together and she nods slowly. “Now, let’s get Beetle.”

 

Regina helps Snow onto her horse and Emma watches them interact, sees the way Snow giggles nervously at something Regina says and Regina smiles back, practiced and distant but her eyes smile, too, and there’s something almost like affection hidden deep within them.

 

Maybe Regina isn’t quite so good at bitterness as Emma had thought, and she’s never been so certain that she’d made the right decision as when Regina wraps one hand around Snow’s waist to steady her, careful and solicitous as Snow had been to her when unconscious.

 

“Be careful,” she murmurs as she moves back to them, pulling the green cloak from Beetle’s back and dropping it over Emma’s shoulders with delicate movements. “If there’s anything I can do…I owe you now, don’t I?”

 

Emma takes her hands from her shoulders, places them together and raises them to her lips. Regina closes her eyes, her breath hitching, and it’s a power she’s never really known she has over the queen. She doesn’t want it. She hates it.

 

She drops the hands and says, “We’re still strangers,” and then she rides with Quinn into the woods, never once looking back as Snow calls goodbyes and Regina stands in place, Rocinante impatient as they ride past.

 

* * *

  


She doesn’t know where she’s going, deep into the woods far from their usual path. She thinks she hears someone following, rushing behind them with near silent movements, and she can’t care enough to confront them. She has other concerns. They can’t go back to camp, not when the full moon will last another night and she doesn’t know what she can do with Quinn until then.

 

And, of course, he picks up on her tension at once. “Emma, where are we going?”

 

“I don’t know. Somewhere else.”

 

“Look, if you’re having another Regina-related crisis, can you leave me out of it?” She can almost hear his eyes rolling. “Little John promised us a night out if we bring in a good loot and there’s this girl at one of the taverns in town…”

 

“Oh, Quinn.” She stops short, dismounts, presses her forehead against Beetle’s flank and lets it all wash over her, the awareness of what she’s going to have to reveal to him too much. She can’t protect him from this, not when the transformation will come soon. Maybe next moon. Maybe tomorrow. And Quinn is young and stupid and he’s finally barged into one too many situations to try to save her. And now he’s paying a price he never should have to.

 

His voice is small and she can’t look at him. “Tell me what’s wrong, Emma,” he says. “Why aren’t we going back to camp? What did Regina…?” He stops. She peeks out at him and sees him staring at his hand. “It’s me, isn’t it? You know what’s happening to me.”

 

“She knows nothing,” says a scathing voice from behind them, and they both spin around. A woman strides toward them, eyes dark and dangerous, and something about her just seems… _wild._ Untamed. “Child of the Moon, you no longer belong to her.” Quinn stares wide-eyed at her and Emma reaches for her bow.

 

The woman sneers at her. “You. You’re lucky I don’t rip out your throat for what you’ve done to my pack. Put that down or I won’t be so gracious.” Emma drops her hands, eyes on Quinn.

 

“Pack…” Quinn swallows. “I don’t understand.”

 

And then he does, as the woman weaves a tale for him, speaks about the woods like it’s a living thing and like the Merry Men as though they’re hostile and rigid, unworthy of Quinn as he will be. _Werewolf_ , the legends call wolfmen. _Children of the Moon_. Dangerous outcasts, and this woman promises Quinn something more as quickly as she spells out his fate, and Emma has nothing to promise him in response.

 

What can she do for him? Tie him up far from camp and hope he doesn’t break free? Beg him to stay and then hide his condition from the Men? He’s going to become a magical being, a wolf who can’t escape his future, and she can’t stop that.

 

She stands stock-still, a sudden realization freezing her in place. _Yes, she can._ “Quinn,” she says urgently. “Quinn, you have to come with me. I think we can save you.”

 

The woman sniffs. “And you want to be ‘saved,’ Quinn? This girl wants to deny you who you are already.”

 

Quinn blinks, and Emma’s stunned at the conflict already in his eyes. “You don’t have to be that. You can still be a Merry Man. Still one of us. If this works…”

 

“Yeah.” He chews on his lip, glancing back at her, and now there’s fear, too. And he still looks so small.

 

“There is no cure. We are no sickness,” the woman hisses, and then she’s right in front of Quinn, pressing her lips to the corner of his mouth. “You are ours. I claimed you as my pack. And you will find me tomorrow night.” She moves in a blur, leaping and falling on the other side of a bush as a wolf already, and they both gape after her.

 

Quinn is breathing hard and Emma doesn’t realize she’s doing the same until she feels the nausea rising with it, her stomach empty and her heart moving too fast and Quinn alone beside her. “Let’s camp out here for the night,” she says, and Quinn only nods and doesn’t speak at all.

 

He curls up beside her like they never have before, nestled against her side like he really is just a child, and she holds onto his hand and strokes the scar with her thumb. “Talk to me,” he whispers. “About anything but this.”

 

“Okay.” She tells him about Snow trying to shoot arrows, about the time Little John had drunk too much and tried lifting an entire tavern, about Alan-a-dale’s infatuation with King Midas’s daughter Abigail. She talks about Regina more than she’s allowed herself to in years, about visits to the castle just to make her laugh, about the dark magic and Regina’s garden and the very first time they’d met.

 

“You still love her, don’t you?” Quinn mumbles, and by the time she’s finished with a stilted denial he’s already fast asleep. She presses her lips against the top of his head and closes her own eyes, firmly reminding herself that she has an idea. Quinn _will_ be saved.

 

* * *

  


They sleep for hours until the rain has stopped and the sun is shining down on them, drying them off after a night of being soaked to the bone, and then they ride out again, this time on a familiar path that Emma hasn’t traveled in years.

 

King Leopold’s castle has barely changed but Regina’s tree is higher now in the garden and Regina herself is seated on the wall around it, Snow on the ground beside her, eating an apple. Regina looks up as though she can sense them and her eyes widen.

 

She murmurs something to Snow that has the girl running back into the castle, and then she’s striding toward them, eyes flashing. “Are you mad? You bring him here at an hour to dusk?”

 

Emma stands her ground, unmoved by Regina’s wrath. “You said you owed me. I’m collecting.”

 

Regina tilts her head. “You think I can help him?”

 

“The curse. The one we stole to use on your mother. Do you still have it?”

 

She sees the moment that Regina understands. “You think you can remove the magical properties from Quinn if we use the curse?” Regina says incredulously. “Do you know how unlikely that is? It’s in his bloodstream now. It’s a part of him. The wolf is a magical being, not a being with magic.”

 

Quinn clenches his fist around the white lines of his scar and Regina softens. “If I use the curse, that’s it. Even if it fails. I’ll never be able to use it again.”

 

“Please,” Emma whispers, and she doesn’t know what they are anymore but Regina hesitates, watches her with gentle eyes like they’re still just two girls who’d fallen in love. And that time has passed, but she feels as though she could reach out and touch that Regina again. “Please. I can’t fail him like this.”

 

Regina vanishes in a puff of purple smoke and Emma sinks to the ground, exhaustion and frustration overwhelming her as Quinn pats her shoulder and murmurs, “It’s okay, Emma. I’m going to be okay. I can find that pack…I’m going to be okay.”

 

“You shouldn’t have pushed me aside.”

 

“Like hell,” he says fiercely. “They need you, Emma. They all need you and you need them and you’re their leader, don’t you understand that? You need to take care of everyone else. I can take care of me.” He crouches in front of her and he doesn’t look quite so small anymore. He’s eighteen and she’s never seen him as any more than a child, but today he looks ragged and tall and brave, prepared for a fate she refuses to accept for him. “I have to leave, Emma. I can’t hurt you.”

 

“I won’t let you hurt her,” Regina says from behind them, and Emma’s back on her feet in an instant.

 

“You came back.”

 

Regina brandishes the rolled-up curse, and there’s the ghost of a smile playing at her lips. “Of course I did.”

 

“You said it wouldn’t work.” That if she used it on Quinn, she’d lose that final weapon against her mother, and this is a Regina who puts power ahead of everything. Ahead of Emma. She’d left her three years ago because of it.

 

“We can try,” Regina mutters, and Emma’s heart grows and grows until it feels like it might burst through its bulwarks and consume her, like she is nothing more than hope and love and pain in that moment.

 

Regina whispers the words on the curse and tears it from its fabric and her hands are suddenly alight with bright magic, so white that Emma can see a thousand other colors shining within it. She turns it toward Quinn and he howls out and they stand like that, Quinn shaking and Regina trembling and magic everywhere, all around them, and it envelops Quinn until she can see a boy and then a wolf and then the boy again, and the sky turns dark around them.

 

She doesn’t know how long they’ve been standing in Regina’s garden under her apple tree but it feels like forever, watching the two people she cares most about in the universe locked together in magic, and Quinn is letting out muffled moans now and Regina has her hands stretched out and there are tears sliding down her cheeks and Emma is helpless to do anything other than watch.

 

And then the moon rises just above the horizon and the magic sputters and dies and there’s only a wolf, snorting as he tosses off Regina’s grasp and snarling. “Quinn,” Emma whispers, but there’s no recognition in the wolf’s black eyes.

 

He leaps forward and throws her backward and she fumbles for her knife, pushes at him ineffectually until her hands are bent against her body and he’s slavering, yellow-eyed and hungry, and she has no choice but to protect herself. She slashes a mark against his belly before he can snap at her neck, and he rears up and howls and runs for the woods, spooking Beetle and hurtling into the darkness. “No. No. No.”

 

There are hands on her, prying the knife out of her grasp and folding her cloak around her and she refuses to cry again, refuses to repeat another night in Regina’s castle that will destroy her, so she holds her arms tight to her and doesn’t look at Regina. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” She loves and the darkness takes them, she opens her heart to people and everyone suffers for it. _Love is weakness_.

 

“You have to let him go,” Regina murmurs, and she’s still shaking violently against the other woman’s hands, sobbing without tears or anything other than short breaths that catch on her throat and sound like muffled screams into a void. “He has no future with you.”

 

“I’m not…” She chokes on the words and tries again. “I’m not good at letting people go. Even when I should.” It’s a defiant retort, lashing out at the only person she has left- she doesn’t have her at all, she never will again, she’s alone and it’s the only way she can keep herself safe. All that happens when she loves is pain.

 

And Regina’s eyes gleam at her like she could strike back, but instead she says, “I know,” and there are three years of silence woven into those two words. “You can’t save everyone,” Regina whispers.

 

She shivers and Emma shifts to slide her cloak around Regina as well, protecting her bare shoulders from the chilly night as she stares out into the distance where Quinn had run. “I know,” she says, but she isn’t looking into the forest anymore, but at dark eyes as longing as her own, for only a single moment where there’s nothing between them at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quinn (and Anita, unnamed here) are from Child of the Moon, though this takes place a number of years before that. 
> 
> This was posted in a bit of a hurry but hopefully is typo-free. I'm going to take a little time off while I work on turning all the bullet points I have for Part II into proper outlines, but it shouldn't be too long! I'll also be working on a series of ficlets on [my Tumblr](http://scullysummers.tumblr.com/tagged/darkemma) during that time, and you should see them pop up on AO3 once there's a nice collection of them to post. 
> 
> Part II will begin at the same time as the flashbacks from The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, so look forward to the landscape changing dramatically. Thank you for all your kind support thus far. :)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back for Part II at last! I'm going to try to update every other week, but if I manage them faster, I'll post as soon as I can. 
> 
> We begin here just before the flashback scenes from The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, with some mentions of the events of Fruit of the Poisonous Tree. In short: the king is dead, long live the queen. :)

**PART II**

 

The nobles are gathered around their princess, dressed in long, dark clothing and speaking in hushed tones. The princess in question receives them one by one, pressing her cheeks to the women’s cheeks and allowing the men to kiss her hand, head bowed as she stands before her father’s coffin. She doesn’t look up when another black-clad woman kisses her cheek and whispers condolences, too wrought by grief to recognize a face from years before, and Emma moves with the flow of the crowd, allows it to carry her to the woman standing with similarly bowed head at the other end.

 

She’s been greeted by a number of the nobles, but few still remain around her, the pleasantries done with as they return to their princess. Emma waits until the last has drifted away before she steps in front of the queen.

 

Regina’s eyes are large and sorrowful, hands together at her waist in humble regret. “Thank you for joining us,” she says formally, and looks up.

 

And her eyes widen and then narrow. “What the hell are you doing here?” she hisses as she leans in to press a cordial kiss against Emma’s cheek.

 

Emma smiles sweetly and touches her own lips to a spot just in front of Regina’s ear. “I came to offer my congrat– _condolences_ ,” she corrects sleekly. “You must be so heartbroken to have lost your beloved king.”

 

Regina’s lips curve up for only an instant before she bows her head again. “A terrible tragedy, Lady Swan,” she murmurs. “But I will carry on his good work, and rule until the day comes that my dear Snow White is ready to ascend the throne.”

 

She reaches out to take Emma’s hands in her own. They’re just as soft as Emma remembers and she mentally rolls her eyes at long-gone sentimentality.  Regina is as good as a stranger by now, clothed in a dress that dips a hair too brazen for a funeral and her face no longer worn by years of sorrow. This Regina is seductive steel, impenetrable and warped by years of twisting and hammering into someone new and flawless and false. “I must not hesitate for the good of my kingdom,” she says in a voice less distant and more predatory than Emma had ever known her to be. “Leave me, Lady Swan. Or I will end you, as easily as you make it for me.”

 

She glances once at her guards, summoning one with only a crooked finger, and Emma takes a step back, searching her eyes for conflict.

 

There is nothing but cool challenge within them, and Emma can feel her heart racing in response, something very much like exhilaration in defiance of the command. “Oh, Regina,” she says, and takes a step closer instead. They’re inches away from each other, beyond propriety for just long enough that they earn a few disapproving stares, and she says, smug and quick, “You have no _idea_ what I’m capable of.”

 

Regina’s lip curls and her eyes spark just enough that Emma can still see fire under the coldness; and then the guards come to them just as Emma slips back into the crowd, disappearing as swiftly as she’d come.

 

* * *

“You stole from a king’s funeral?” Alan-a-Dale’s nose wrinkles with disapproval. The sometimes Merry Man they’ve taken to calling Al the Lesser grins with easy delight behind him, hiding it behind a surreptitious wipe of his chin.

 

She toys with the ring of bracelets she’d snatched off Regina’s wrist. “I didn’t say that. That would be in poor taste, of course.” Will guffaws and Al smirks and Alan’s face grows darker. “Hey, Al, you have that lady love back in your land, don’t you?”

 

He shakes his head, face falling. “She’s been forced to marry another.”

 

_That’s_ a story she knows all too well. “These were made for a queen.” She dangles them into his palm. “If you ever make it back there, hand these over to her. I’m sure she’d love them.” She doesn’t like being in possession of Regina’s jewelry for too long, doesn’t like thinking about Regina at all, if possible.

 

She notices suddenly that one of her hands is on her cloak, the material pressed between her fingers as she strokes it absently. She yanks it away, annoyed. “Listen, I’m going to head out for a day or two. Little John was talking about an archery competition in Midas’s kingdom-“ Alan’s face lights up. That infatuation with Princess Abigail is still running strong, it seems. “But I think I’ll meet you there for the second set. You three go ahead.”

 

They don’t need further encouragement and they all disperse, fading back into the woods near camp as Emma climbs back onto Beetle. He snorts, turning back toward the road, and she tugs at his reins. “Not yet, Beetle. First a little deeper into the woods, then we can run.”

 

The path is a familiar one, worn by years of tracking and watching, and they both have it memorized by now. They only go during the day, only when the caves are quiet, and only when the full moon is weeks away.

 

“Wait here,” she murmurs to Beetle, tying him up a distance from where she needs to be. She climbs up to where the trees are so tightly locked together that she can cross the whole area in the air, and perches in place just beyond a small lake, leaning back and breathing in the scent of the woods.

 

It’s been a long day. She’d heard about King Leopold’s death earlier in the week- poison, they’d said, by a foreigner. Emma knows enough about the local kingdoms and their treatment of outsiders- she’d seen it with even Regina, both of royal and distant blood and yet never quite accepted- to roll her eyes at the assumption. No, she knows exactly who poisoned the king, no matter who had taken the blame.

 

And she’s _glad_ , she thinks savagely, yanking out a handful of leaves from beside her. She weaves them together absently, schooling her features in a vain attempt to suppress her feelings there. She’s glad that he’s dead and she’s glad that Regina was the one to finish him off and she doesn’t care about the mourning kingdom he’d been so good to, the people who’d benefited from his rule. She doesn’t know what kind of a queen Regina or Snow will be but for a moment she can’t be noble or see the big picture for the peasants or anything, _anything_ but Regina’s mouth clamped shut as Emma presses kisses to her stomach.

 

She really had gone to the funeral to congratulate her, to look at her with eyes that know what she’d done and don’t condemn her for it, and she twists the spine of one leaf through the others and thinks about the Regina she’d seen. Regina cool. Regina isolated. Regina who can put on a new face for every stranger who walks up to her. 

 

She remembers a warning, murmured to Snow White somewhere downward of half a decade before. She wonders if Snow remembers her, remembers to be wary or has even picked up the signs on her own along the way.

 

The leaves take shape in her hands and she rests her head against the trunk of a tree, watching a figure emerge from a trapdoor across the lake. He’s still tall but he’s finally grown into his height and he moves with the kind of grace you’d expect from a woodland creature. _Quinn_.

 

She hates these outings, hates the quiet and the intrusive thoughts that come with them. The memories of her failures of the past come to her when she’s alone, thoughts of whom she’d let down and who had let her down ever-present when she allows them to surface. And inevitably, in the wash of faces- of those she’d stolen from and those she’d escaped, of kings and princes and the Dark One himself, of a brother she’ll never know and a family she’s never quite accepted- there are only two that linger each time.

 

She’d seen one of them earlier today and now she seeks out the other, watches as Quinn walks to the river and sniffs, once, twice, and then turns toward where Beetle is tied. He frowns and shrugs and walks in the opposite direction.

 

This is pure indulgence for her, the constant empty comfort of _at least he’s alive_. He might be a wolf but he has a pack, he’s surrounded by people who’d protect him with their lives, and he lives for another full moon. She hates coming here but she tortures herself with it anyway, with the constant reminder of what had happened to the last person who’d put her before himself. And now she’s alone, at the head of the Merry Men but an outsider of her own making, and she will have no more regrets like Quinn.

 

And Quinn still lives.

 

If she rides quickly, she might still make it to King Midas’s before nightfall. The archers are slow and methodical there, eager to win the coveted golden arrows, and she knows that a competition that begins at noon can easily continue into the night. So she waits until Quinn vanishes into the woods and returns to Beetle. “Let’s ride out,” she says, and holds onto the sound of her own voice until the forest swallows it whole.

 

* * *

Midas’s tournaments last a week, with the palace and environs designated a neutral ground for thieves and runaways who wish to participate in the games. The Merry Men dominate every year, snatching up any new talent and offering them brotherhood for their skills, and they make for a festive crowd that attracts all the nobles in the land.

 

Emma is the main event and the most unobtrusive one, sandwiched between several of her men at any given time and winning three of seven titles on her own. She eats with her hood on and only nods to those who compliment her skill, ever a mystery and a calculated one, too. There are no rumors here that Swan Hood is a sham, a hood alone given to an arbitrary thief each time. There are only curious rich men who try to subtly peer under her hood and bindings on her cloak and body to conceal her greatest secrets from them.

 

On their final day, she’s called for the final round. She shoots an arrow just above Will’s almost-bullseye to hit the center of the target and emerge victorious, to the whooping of her other men and Will’s scowl. She grins under her hood and stands back, allowing Little John to accept King Midas’s award for her.

 

“To Swan Hood, our reigning champion,” the king announces grudgingly. He’s one of the few kings out there who doesn’t value his gold much- or just transforms more items into gold, perhaps, and breaks even no matter what she steals- but he still has his pride, and she doubts he’s a fan of hers no matter how good she is with a bow.

 

She inclines her head in polite deference anyway and climbs onto Beetle again, glancing through the shadow of her hood out toward home. There are soldiers approaching, knights of King Midas too late for the competition, and they clip past her as she waits for her men. One laughs, loud and mocking, and she glares silently at him as he sneers at her.

 

She doesn’t know what’s prompted this sudden disrespect- she expects it from competitors, but Midas’s knights have always given her a wide berth and don’t question the Merry Men in their borders- and she follows them with her eyes as they ride to Midas and the first retrieves a paper, gesturing to it as they murmur. Midas looks up, eyes moving to her, and she feels sudden wariness tingling at the back of her neck, creeping higher the longer he watches.

 

She rides away, waiting no longer for her men, dread pulling at her as she makes her way back toward camp. Something is wrong, has changed those knights enough to mock her without fear, has destroyed what should have been a grand victory. Something is changed.

 

She stops at a tavern near the border and dresses in more feminine clothes before she enters, skulking in corners and listening to conversation, and then she hears her name and freezes.

 

Not Swan Hood. Not the Hooded Swan. “…Emma Swan?” the bartender is saying, leaning in. “I don’t believe it. No woman could be such a great thief.”

 

“No woman would provide for me,” says another man, puffing his chest under threadbare garments that Emma can see from across the room. “It must be a lie.”

                                                                                                                        

“It’s true!” a third says, and he’s holding out a paper of his own and Emma is still staring, disbelieving, feeling a world she’s been building for over a decade crashing around her. It’s _impossible_. Her men are sworn to secrecy, their allies always discreet, and there’s no one else in the realm who could reveal her and has motive to. No one but…

 

She bolts, stumbling across the room with her dress catching on chairs and overturning them, and there’s a shout from the other end of the room. “It’s her! It’s the Swan!” And she runs as fast as she can, dodging hands that grab at her and catcalls and jeers from others, her head pounding and her heart skipping beats as she throws herself out the door and jogs up into the woods where she’d tethered Beetle.

 

And then she sees it, a set of papers pinned to a tree. The first is a poster with an image of Snow White drawn onto it. _WANTED for crimes against the Queen: murder, treason, treachery._ But she pays it little heed, too dumbfounded at the second to consider the other.

 

She yanks the second from the tree and crumples it into a ball, drops it under her heel and grinds it furiously into the ground. A moment later she picks it up again, smoothing it out and staring at it. _WANTED for crimes against the Queen._ This one doesn’t have a list of crimes, real or imagined, only her name written across the bottom, just below the pencil drawing of her face. _Emma “Swan Hood”._

 

She feels the fierce betrayal tearing into her insides like something corrosive, thinning away her skin and leaving gaping gashes where she’d once been whole. For all their tension and their separation, she’d never thought that Regina would…

 

Regina wouldn’t…

 

She rides, rising and falling with Beetle and her cloak around her with the hood down as she gallops against the wind.

 

* * *

Regina keeps the same rooms in her castle as she had when she had been only a young, unwilling queen, but now they’re decorated with more black than silver, the walls and the ceiling adorned with decorations of stark, sharp angles and the silver that remains there only to offset the black. It makes it all so much more grim and foreboding, the domain of someone who embraces her darkness wholeheartedly, and Emma purses her lips and moves rapidly through it to the dressing table.

 

There’s a book open on the table to a page with writing in a language she’s never seen, a few gruesome drawings highlighting the text. Emma pulls out one of her arrows, draws it back and stabs it hard into the book as she jumps backward, half-expecting some kind of burst of magic to explode in her face. But instead it’s only a book, inconspicuous if not for the arrow that impales it.

 

Good. She just wants to send a message to Regina, one that won’t get her killed in the process. She considers leaving now, her mission complete, but morbid curiosity has her instead surveying the room, casting a critical eye at a big bookcase and the heavy curtains that block off the porch and then- finally- at the ceiling.

 

Hanging from the center of it is a structure perfect for what she needs, a spidery chandelier made of candled arms that surround a suspended, fractal-decorated black disc as wide in diameter as Beetle. _Perfect_. She ducks back onto the porch to retrieve her grappling hook and tosses it up until it catches hold of the center cables that attach the whole chandelier to the ceiling.

 

And then she climbs up and slides into the shadows and waits, and _dammit_ , a part of her is more eager to see Regina again and demand answers than just send a message. She can do this, can watch in silence without engaging a Regina who she can’t predict just yet. A Regina who would betray someone else’s secrets just for…what, showing up at her husband’s funeral?

 

It does no good for her to dwell on Regina, opening herself up to more hurt when that isn’t who she is anymore. Regina can’t break through her anymore, and if she’s been revealed by name, so be it. The people might reject her but a starving man will never turn away the food she offers, even if it is some deep-seeded masculinity that she offends.

 

She’s spent her whole life enduring and she’ll continue to subsist. She has no weaknesses if her secrets are all laid bare before the world. Now she’s just…Emma. Emma Swan. Still an outlaw captain, still good with a bow, still caretaker of the needy, and no dark queen is ever going to make her feel less than she is ever again.

 

She won’t run away from Regina. She can’t be chased away, either, punished like a swat of a broom against a stray tomcat and sent scampering off. And isn’t that the message that Regina is sending? _Intrude on my life and I’ll intrude on yours._ Emma doesn’t do well with challenges like this, smug and distant as though Regina has become a bully in the years since they’d last been together. And Emma despises bullies.

 

There’s a clicking against stone in the hallway, the whoosh of a double set of doors as they open and close, and the clicking doesn’t miss a beat. The room is dimming now, Emma’s shadow barely visible against the floor, and she holds onto the cable and angles closer to watch Regina as she discovers the arrow.

 

“Look who’s come to visit,” Regina muses, plucking it from the book and raising it to eye level. She traces the tip against her lips for a moment absentmindedly and a line of blood appears across the top one. She licks it away and Emma watches, spellbound despite herself.

 

And then Regina whirls around and Emma’s unprepared when her arrow suddenly gains impossible inertia, purple magic glowing around it as it shoots toward, directly toward where she’s hiding. Emma just barely dodges it, scampering to the other end of the chandelier just in time to see the arrow slice through the edge of her cloak and the cables like a knife through butter and she spins into a crouch as the whole chandelier drops through the air, iron crashing onto stone as glass decorations shatter around her.

 

Regina cocks her head. Emma glares up at her. With a wave of Regina’s hand, her cloak repairs itself and Regina turns, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. “How do I get you to _stay away_?” she demands with a long-suffering sigh.

 

“You can try to stop fucking with me,” Emma says, clambering to her feet and tucking the arrow back into her quiver. “Really? Outing me to the whole Enchanted Forest?”

 

“Really?” Regina echoes. “Interfering at my husband’s funeral?”

 

“And you don’t think you overreacted?” Emma demands disbelievingly.

 

Regina waves her hand. “None of that is my problem. You’ll scrape through it, you always do.” She returns to her dressing table, bending down to inspect her lipstick and pursing her lips at her reflection. “ _You’re_ not my problem, Lady Swan. Make yourself my problem again and you’ll find I’ll be less charitable.”

 

She’s like an alien queen suddenly, dismissive and unbothered as though Emma isn’t worth her time anymore, and Emma says, mostly to gauge her reaction, “I see you’re hunting for Snow White. Royal assassination didn’t go so well?”

 

Regina’s back stiffens and her eyes turn deadly in the mirror. “Get _out_ , Emma.”

 

Instead, Emma stands, stalking toward Regina as the queen’s eyes follow her from her reflection. She hasn’t tried to fry Emma yet- not unless that magic-charged arrow had been meant to hit her- and Emma counts that as a plus. Regina’s back is ramrod-straight and she’s licking her lips again and her eyes are hungry like Emma is a new tasty morsel.

 

“Don’t tell me what to do,” she says, low and dangerous as Regina herself, and then she’s gone as swiftly as she’d come, through the curtains and onto the porch and down to the castle grounds so quickly that she’s smug when Regina comes to the balcony a moment later to glare down to find her and she’s already on Beetle’s back.

 

She lifts her hand in farewell and Regina’s eyes cut daggers through her and she rides off into the sunset with the smug sensation of something like victory.

 

* * *

And then, of course, she’s rudely awakened in the morning by Al’s monkey pulling at her ear and the sudden bellow of the Friar. “Attack! We’re being attacked!”

 

“Attacked?” she demands blearily, stumbling to her feet with her bow drawn before she even thinks of shoes. “ _Here_?”

 

“King Leopold’s knights,” Will announces, jogging forward with a sword in hand. “Or…Queen Regina’s, I suppose.”

 

Her eyes narrow and she feels fury bubbling up, muddled with frustration. “She wants me? She can have me.”

 

“Don’t be an idiot, we can take them. It’s only a half dozen of them and they’re riding some glorious steeds.” Will charges forward and Emma climbs up a tree and fires with stunning accuracy at the lead guard’s helmet, knocking him unconscious and to the ground. Al is dancing between the trees, taunting two of the guards forward until they smack into each other and are dismounted, Little John handily takes down another, and Emma gets the fifth just as Will stabs the final one.

 

“Non-fatal wounds, Will!” she shouts to him.

 

“I have this, no worries!” he yells, retrieving a bandage from his pocket and giving her a half-salute. The guard growls and smacks him over the head with his lance before toppling off the horse.

 

All in all, it’s a less than intimidating assault, incompetent guards and all, but for the fact that Emma’s fairly certain that these guards couldn’t have found their way out of the palace, let alone into Sherwood Forest, without very specific directions. Regina still remembers where she lives.

 

And that’s fine, because Emma remembers perfectly well where Regina lives. She tries stealing Rocinante the next day and he nearly kicks her (and gets nuzzled by Beetle, that _traitor_ ) so instead she scales the wall up to Regina’s room again and is thrown backward on the balcony by a shockwave of magic around it.

 

_Huh_. She winds up flirting her way into the kitchens and taking the stairs up to Regina’s room dressed in a scullery maid’s outfit, head down and shuffling through the halls until she hears that the queen is in the throne room receiving guests.

 

This time she takes a handful of diamond-encrusted necklaces before she finds, tucked into a back corner of Regina’s jewelry box, a delicate mask of pale lavender that has her gasp with recognition. Regina had been so young the night they’d met at King George’s castle, stunning and innocent and Emma had been entirely in her thrall from the moment she’d heard her voice.

 

She lays it out on Regina’s pillow and digs in her pocket until she finds the amethyst bracelet that she’d slipped into it before she’d gone, and she leaves it resting atop the mask as a not-so-friendly calling card.

 

Regina doesn’t take it well.

 

The original _WANTED_ signs go down and are replaced with more pleasant _WANTED DEAD_ signs, and while her men travel freely without problem, she suddenly finds herself the target of ambushes whenever she’s alone. She begins carrying a sword around instead of her customary knife and collecting knight’s helmets, stringing them into a decoration that stretches across Regina’s balcony. She watches from the edge of the woods as Regina sets them on fire, burning away their adornments and the cable that connects them until they crash down onto the ground below, hollow husks of iron.

 

She buys a charm that’s supposed to allow the wearer to break through magical barriers and she hides in the ceiling and waits for Regina’s suspicious glances around when there’s a new treat somewhere in the room. She leaves her necklaces and earrings sometimes. One time, after Regina sends her army in to confiscate her riches as she distributes them, she manages to sneak a family of frogs into her private baths.

 

Whatever this war is, Regina has no qualms at hurting others to get to her, and Emma is only more infuriated when she does. And maybe they’re both better at petty taunting than collateral damage but Emma doesn’t know how to stop when Regina’s on the other end, pushing her buttons and directly interfering with her life. It’s a power struggle that she’s winning, anyway, with every stolen jewel from Regina’s constantly-restocked supply.

 

Though it may be fair to say that Regina believes herself victorious, too, she thinks one day as she’s chased from the castle grounds by a pack of vicious-looking felines. Regina stands regal on her balcony, gazing down with nothing but satisfied contempt, and Emma kicks against Beetle’s sides and speeds up.

 

* * *

She escapes, as she always does, and with an ornate gold necklace that Regina had had laid beside her bed. A quick handoff to Will and she’s done for the day, adrenaline still racing through her veins, and instead of sleeping she lies on her back and tosses an apple she’d snatched from Regina’s tree. Up, down, up, down.

 

“You ride to that castle more now than you did when you were a girl,” says a voice from behind her. Little John, who bears her erratic eccentricities as well as all the others, but has always watched her as though he knows more.

 

She catches the apple and bites into it. “I used to ride to King George’s castle all the time, too. Times change. None of it means anything.” Her once-adoptive father and the brother she barely knows are relics of the past, strangers she rarely encounters rather than rivals she seeks out. She’s distanced herself from her early adulthood, found nobler and more distant ways to pass the time.

 

Up until Regina had started this war with her, at least. Emma doesn’t do well when challenged.

 

“Leopold was a good king and his kingdom wealthy. We had no reason to spend much time there.” Little John sits down on a log, taking out an arrow and sharpening it absentmindedly. “Though that changed for you when he married his young queen, I’d wager.”

 

She pauses mid-bite and glances over at him. “John–“

 

“Do you know who she is, Emma?” He doesn’t look up from his arrow. “Your old friend may be playing games with you, but she executed three men earlier in a village south from here for feeding Snow White when she’d fled the queen. There’s a fourth due to be killed at sundown.” The sharpening stone scrapes against the arrow, again and again and again. “You’ve brought food and safety to many, but antagonizing the Evil Queen–“

 

“Evil?” she breaks in. “The _Evil Queen_?”

 

“That’s what they’ve come to call her.”

 

“It’s a load of horseshit is what it is.” Regina had once been wistful about being loved by the kingdom, she thinks, and instead she’s been corrupted and consumed by revenge and now they’ve branded her with this name. “She isn’t evil. She’s just…angry.”

 

John nods gravely, eyes still on his work. “Siltgorren. That’s where the execution is scheduled tonight.” When he finally looks up, his gaze is dark and sympathetic. She rests her head against her pack and stares back silently. “Be careful.”

 

She laughs, sharp and uncertain. “Careful Merry Men are useless Merry Men.”

 

But she pockets the apple and mounts Beetle and rides south, head down and hood up and they arrive at Siltgorren just as the queen’s caravan comes clipping down the opposite road. She yanks Beetle’s reins and cuts into the town ahead of them, yanking off her cloak and replacing it with a more unobtrusive brown one as she rides down to the marketplace.

 

There are royal guards already in place, supervising a few scruffy-looking villagers as they erect a tall wooden post on one of the market stages. Emma had been there not long ago, riding tall on Beetle with her hood down as she’d distributed sacks of fruit to the local beggars. Today the beggars scurry in the corners to avoid being kicked by an errant knight, and the atmosphere of the town is gloomy even as the market fills with villagers.

 

Emma backs up into the shadows, watching from her vantage point on Beetle as the knights drag in a man, sack on head, and tie him to the post before they reveal him. He’s just…an elderly man, the kind she’s familiar with from many a long voyage. The kind who feeds wayfaring travelers out of kindness and refuses the gems she offers him in return, and even now he seems resigned to his ending, peaceful and proud.

 

“For the crime of treason! And aiding a wanted fugitive!” Regina announces, riding up on Rocinante and sneering down at the man. “The crown will punish anyone who has the _gall_ to help the traitor Snow White.” She smirks, dismounting and stalking onto the stage herself, and leans in toward the man, seductive and demanding. “Tell me which way she went, and I will spare your life and take only your freedom.”

 

He spits at her. It freezes halfway out of his mouth and remains suspended in midair, glowing purple, and Regina makes a face and says, “Well, then,” and slaps him hard on the cheek thrice until he sags against the post. She takes the sack from the executioner and lowers it onto the man’s head, gently like a parody of care.

 

Emma is frozen in place. For all Regina’s anger and lashing out and dismissiveness, even recalling the moment Regina had torn out her heart and held it in her hand, she’s never seen _this_ Regina, cold and cruel and regal like a tyrant. It can’t be Regina. This queen is despised by the people around her and knows it, uses it like a bludgeon over the heads of the helpless, and conquers without pause.

 

It can’t be Regina who dances at balls and raises her hood off her face and shows kindness even when she believes that love makes her weak. She’d thought her a distant queen, perhaps, and easy to provoke. She hadn’t seen this woman Little John calls the Evil Queen until today, had seen only hints of her at the king’s funeral and had forgotten her with the renewal of their feud. She can’t grasp that she could exist. Not within her Regina, who had only been a prisoner who’d sought power for control.

 

Suddenly, an arrow shoots past the guards and embeds itself into Regina’s palm where it still holds the sack. It takes a moment for Emma to react. It takes another for her to realize that she’s the one who’d fired the arrow.

 

Regina stares at it, her lips beginning to mouth _Em–?_ and Emma forgets caution or whatever warning Little John had offered her and gallops forward, clearing a path as she shoots wild arrows at the knights around her. She fumbles for her sword and waves it blindly, urges Beetle on into the crowd and up to the stage, and very suddenly she’s astride and staring down at Regina as Regina stares up at her, fingers closed around her arrow.

 

She tears her eyes away, slashes at the man’s bonds and yanks him up behind her. “Hold on,” she orders, and rides toward the front of town, cutting down the knights who try to stop her.

 

She expects arrows and extra guards and she doesn’t expect to make it out of town, and it comes as a surprise when the knights begin to scatter and there’s only the sound of one horse behind her. And then, Regina’s voice. “Stay back! She’s _mine_ ,” she orders fiercely, and a fireball whistles right past her head.

 

“Bend forward! Stay close!” she snaps to her companion, sparing a glance behind her. Regina and Rocinante pursue her, another fireball whirling past her dangerously close, and Regina has murder in her eyes.

 

A third fireball, too close for comfort, and yet… Regina is catching up, Rocinante faster and his load lighter, but she suddenly knows that they’ll never catch up. That Regina is missing her on purpose, her target much too close and large to avoid.

 

Regina won’t risk her life even if she’d think nothing of others’, and that knowledge gives her no comfort. She hesitates, slowing Beetle to a light trot. “What are you doing?” the man protests.

 

Rocinante catches them a moment later. Regina slows, too, circling around her in a loose arc as their gazes lock and Emma watches her, a hand buried in her pocket as though she has the power or will to remove her knife. “I’ll kill you,” Regina says, voice like steel.

 

Emma shakes her head, her voice wavering just a bit. “No, you won’t.” She’s certain of it. Regina might not love her anymore, but there’s something more to who they are than just enemies- _You’ll scrape through it, you always do_ \- even if they’ll never, _ever_ be friends again. Emma’s skin crawls with loathing and longing and she’s supposed to have broken free from these emotions, isn’t she? She’s supposed to have stopped caring, to protect her heart as carefully as Regina had done the same. “You won’t,” she repeats, suddenly as certain of that as she is her own tangled emotions.

 

Regina’s eyes blaze with fire and she opens her mouth and then snaps it shut, pressing her knees against Rocinante and riding back toward the town in a fury of dust and wind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think, if you're so inclined!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the amazing feedback for last chapter! I’m glad y’all are psyched I AM TOO. The later part of this chapter happens at the same time as Child of the Moon.
> 
>  **A NOTE** : A character is going to be introduced early in this chapter who I know some of you won’t be pleased to see (and some will, for big-picture reasons!). I just want to be clear that this is 100% a Swan Queen story, I don’t plan on writing any other romances and I don’t think Regina or Emma would cooperate with them if I tried. Whatever happens here will be minimal and necessary and I will warn you about it beforehand.
> 
> And thanks to Race for her help with Beetle! Also thanks to Megan Whalen Turner’s _Attolia_ series because I don’t think I can even pretend that it hasn’t been a heavy influence on elements of Part II. If you haven’t read the series, get on that now. :)

She’s peering out through the branches at Quinn, chatting up a young male werewolf who’s been the pack for a few months, when there’s a flash of yellow-gold far to her right and Quinn’s nostrils flare in sudden recognition. She scrambles back, sliding down the trees and taking off toward the direction of the movement, and gasps with outrage.

 

There’s a boy only a few years younger than her riding Beetle away from her, guiding him through the thick underbrush and glancing back worriedly as though he knows that he’s being followed. Her eyes narrow and she darts forward, whistling low for her horse.

 

Beetle hesitates and turns and the boy catches sight of her, eyes lighting up with startled mischief, and he pulls hard on Beetle’s reins. “Hey. Hey!” Emma snarls, charging forward, and her knife is out and she’s yanking at his leg to topple him down before he can move away.

 

He lands on top of her and she has her knife at his neck in an instant, furious at the near-theft of her horse. She has three possessions: her bow, her cloak, her horse- and she protects them with all she has and no _boy_ is going to take them from her. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demands, her other hand fisted in his shirt as she presses her knife against skin. “You think you can steal from _me_?”

 

Beetle saunters around to watch them, chewing on what sounds like the remains of a cookie. _Traitor. Again_. She rolls her eyes and turns them back onto the boy. “Who are you?”

 

Instead of replying, he fumbles in his pocket and removes something and the tip of her knife slides into his throat just as there’s a _boom!_ and something explodes into the air and leaves them both quaking in its shockwave. Her knife falls and Beetle bolts and the boy falls away from her, wide-eyed. “Wow. I didn’t know it would be that loud.”

 

She shoves him away, no time to deal with him and whatever weapon he holds, and races after Beetle, fleet-footed as she can be amidst gnarly roots and bushes and tightly locked trees. “Beetle!” she calls. “Beetle, wait!” She whistles but the flash of gold between the trees doesn’t pause. “ _Beetle_!”

 

And then another presence beside her, that damn boy keeping up as though he’s lived in the woods his whole life. “Go away!”

 

There’s still a glint in his eye like he doesn’t see her as very threatening- even though she’d had a _knife at his throat_ just moments before- and he laughs, taking the lead. “Winner takes all?”

 

“Go fuck yourself.” She kicks his ankle so he trips and leaps over a fallen tree trunk to track Beetle to where she can see the woods beginning to clear out, speeding up as Beetle finally begins to slow. “Beetle!” She whistles again and he pauses at last, and she staggers to a stop just as the boy bowls her over and runs to the horse.

 

She lets out a low curse and moves to rise just as she catches sight of a second quartet of hooves stopped just beside Beetle and the boy about to mount him. “Stop right there!” the guard orders. His armor is black and his face is covered. One of Regina’s new elite section, then.

 

But the boy is frozen in place, anyway, staring down at the dirt road and up at the guard with devastation that makes no sense. “Where…where am I?” he asks, suddenly hopeless. “This isn’t the land without magic.”

 

“ _This_ ,” one of the guards says, shoving him, “Is Queen Regina’s territory. And _that_ is Swan Hood’s horse. I’d recognize it anywhere. You a Merry Man, boy? Wood outlaw?”

 

The boy shakes his head, spine straightening as he raises his chin. “I don’t know what that is. This is my horse. I’m on a journey from the Northlands.”

 

The guard grabs him and Emma’s had enough, she wants Beetle back and she wants him _now_ , and she pulls out her bow and fires hard enough against that helmet to give the knight a concussion. He teeters for a moment and topples off the horse, the arrow still sticking out of his helmet.

 

She inspects him, finds the jeweled cuff that Regina gives to her favorite guards on his arm and pockets it. The boy stares at her. “Uh…thanks.” He looks less confident now, more fearful as his eyes dart from road to woods to horse. “I thought you were going to kill me.”

 

“I was,” she says darkly. “I don’t take well to thieves.”

 

“Didn’t he say you were an outlaw?”

 

“Don’t take well to mouthy thieves, either.” She turns her bow on him. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you now.”

 

He stares at her, twitchy and uncertain. “Is this the Enchanted Forest?” he asks.

 

“Of course it is,” she says, and he sags. “Where did you come from?”

 

“Neverland.” He closes his eyes. “My second time there. I’ve been trying to get back to…anywhere but here, really,” he says, laughing helplessly. “You might as well kill me. It’ll be simpler than…” His lips purse closed. “Never mind that.”

 

She considers fulfilling his wish and cutting him down right there, punishing him for attempting to take Beetle from her. But instead she recalls how easily he’d run through the woods and her eyes flicker down to the weapon he’d had in his pocket and she says, “I think we may have a place for you with my men, actually.”

 

There are no more secrets in the camp of the Merry Men now that Emma has been unmasked and a queen knows their location, only men either noble or not and a shared mission regardless. And this boy is adrift and not entirely incapable and she sighs and says, “I’m Emma. Swan Hood.”

 

He smiles gratefully and darts one more glance at the road- upwards, where the Northlands he’d said he’d been from are- and asks, “You’re really not going to kill me?”

 

“Make yourself useful and I’ll reconsider it. _Never_ touch my horse again.” She turns her glare on Beetle, who’s snuffling interestedly at the boy’s pocket. The boy takes out another biscuit and holds it out to Beetle before he remembers himself and takes a bite of it instead.

 

“I’m Bael– I’m Neal,” he corrects himself, biting hard on his lip. “Put me to work.”

 

* * *

She sends Neal off to the village to have the gemstones removed from the armband and set into earrings, an easy test that he manages to pass in a few hours. He doesn’t pocket the garnets and he finds his way back to where she’d left him, so she brings him into the camp before she rides off for Regina’s castle. He’ll be fine.

 

She knows Regina will recognize the earrings for what they are- the gems are rare and it’s a symbol of opulence that she has so many to spare. Leopold’s kingdom has been one of the more affluent ones for years, with a stronger army than Midas’s to secure its place as the most powerful kingdom in the Enchanted Forest. And Regina seems to share that gift of management, the kingdom growing only wealthier in her early reign.

 

Yet for all her riches, Regina doesn’t take well to being robbed, and Emma half expects rage at how carelessly she’d chopped up the blue garnets and repurposed them. She leaves them in her customary place on Regina’s pillow, just above the duvet, and slips into Regina’s personal wardrobe to watch and wait, fingers running absentmindedly against the silky skirt of one of Regina’s dresses.

 

It isn’t long before Regina retires for the evening, bidding farewell to her guards- no one is ever permitted into Regina’s quarters except handmaidens, and the guards are well aware of the fact that Regina has no use for them as bodyguards. Her lead knight, a scruffy-looking huntsman whose heart she holds, had once stood too close to the door and spotted a gift from Emma on her pillow and Regina had nearly whirled around and killed him just for reacting to it.

 

 _Good_ , Emma thinks, gritting her teeth. She gets edgy even when it’s just handmaidens in the room, dressing Regina and never overstepping their boundaries. Which is proprietary in ways that she has no business feeling. _Damn_ , she corrects herself, peering through the double doors of the wardrobe to watch Regina.

 

Regina spots the earrings in their soft jewel box and her face flickers with…irritation, maybe. Frustration. She lifts them, the tip of her thumb scraping against the center jewel and smoothing against it with gentle movements that send shivers up Emma’s spine.

 

“I know you’re here,” Regina says, and Emma freezes. There’s a ghost of a smile on Regina’s face now, almost fond for a moment before she cleanly wipes it away. “I know you, Emma. You like to stay. Gloat, like a fool. It’s a wonder you’re still alive.”

 

She takes the earrings very calmly and replaces the dangling ones in her ears with the new ones, the jewels glittering incandescent in the light from her lamps.  “I won’t put up with this anymore,” she murmurs, her face darkening. “I can’t have you humiliating my kingdom like this. I _will_ provide a strong front, and if you continue to undermine me, then...” She inhales through her nose and exhales, slow and frustrated like she’s only a girl again instead of a queen. “Don’t test me, Emma,” she says finally, and it sounds more like a plea than a threat. “You don’t want to back me into a corner.”

 

Emma watches her, silent and stubborn and her stomach sinking. Regina is unpinning her own hair, letting it fall as she waves her hand and her dress is replaced with a nightgown. Like this it’s more difficult than ever not to see Regina without all the trappings of the Evil Queen, and there are no false threats when it’s only, very simply, Regina. Regina who is warning her now that she’s pushed too far, that whatever bond they still have is being stretched to its limits now.

 

With Regina now, it’s all-or-nothing, _let me kill civilians_ or _I’ll kill you_ , and she rolls her neck against her shoulders and pushes open the wardrobe doors, rising to her feet. “No.”

 

Regina turns, eyebrow quirking dangerously. “No?”

 

“You think I’m going to let your guards kill every villager who dares blink at Snow White the wrong way?” Emma scowls at her. “They’re _people,_ Regina. No.”

 

Regina doesn’t move for a moment, eyes hard as she studies Emma. Then– a jerk of her hand, a twitch– her fist closes and then opens on fire.

 

Emma is armed so quickly that she doesn’t notice she’s pulling the bowstring until Regina’s eyes flicker down to it for a moment. She hesitates, holding it firm, and Regina’s fireball hovers in her hand. “Ah,” Regina says, face smoothing into a mask again. “This is interesting.”

 

She smirks. It hurts her face a bit. “You’re not going to kill me, Regina. I know you.”

 

Regina’s flames flicker and rise. “You have no conception of what I am.”

 

“Who.”

 

“What?”

 

“ _Who_ you are.” The bowstring is digging into her finger and she doesn’t know why it’s still important for her to differentiate that with Regina. Regina is past hope. But she’s still _someone_ , twisted and dark as she’s become, and Emma refuses to see monsters when people are only people. When Regina is only…

 

Her finger slackens against her bow and Regina laughs, cruel and mocking and delighted like a child with a new toy. “You know, when I think back to our girlhood together, I always believed _I_ had been the naïve one.” Emma rolls her eyes and Regina takes a step closer, then another, until the tip of Emma’s arrow is pressed to her and Emma is watching her chest heave against it as she breathes.

 

Regina leans forward, words throaty and low, and somehow she slips right back into the queen she shows the world, even with her hair down and her gown simple and Emma’s earrings cobalt dots on her earlobes. “Please don’t tell me you’re trying to save me.”

 

But Emma isn’t a child anymore, isn’t wide-eyed in love and easy to shatter. Emma has no more illusions to cling to about a future with Regina or any kind of saving to be had. _You can’t save everyone_. “I’m not concerned with that,” she says evenly. Regina’s mouth closes mid-sneer and she straightens, eyes hard and cold and distant. Emma plows on anyway, heat from the fireball warm near her heart. “I’m concerned with saving innocents _from_ you,” she clarifies. “That’s what I do, remember? Help the needy.”

 

“You’re a glorified thief,” Regina says coolly. “Don’t act as though you mean anything more than that.”

 

The words come easily and _why_ does she come out of every encounter with Regina wanting to win so badly she’ll do anything to get there? “I told Snow White to run away from you.” Regina’s fireball flares. “When we were trapped with the wolfmen. I told her not to trust you if her father was found dead. Did that mean anything?”

 

For a moment, she thinks she sees flames in Regina’s eyes, brown reflecting orange so there’s nothing but fire remaining, and her fingers tighten around her bow again.

 

But then the fire is extinguished and she lets her hand fall at last as Regina leans forward, the arrow pricking her skin so Emma can see a small spot of blood beneath it, darkening blue satin to near-black.

 

“It won’t,” Regina says, low and fierce. “Not in the long run. None of the people you protect will matter because I will have Snow White and I will destroy her. Some people will die for her and the ones who live will know they have failed when I cut off her head and hang her body from my castle walls. So what do you think of that, Emma? How can you mean anything more than that?” Her eyes are aflame again, this time with no reflection from the outside.

 

Emma pushes the arrow aside and steps forward, close enough that they’re breathing the same air and Regina’s lips are curled in a half-snarl. “How can you mean anything when all you are is vengeance?” she demands in a whisper, her fingers moving up to touch a single blue garnet earring.

 

Regina flinches away from her and spins, walking to her dressing table and sitting down, her eyes in the mirror fixed on her own reflection and nothing else. “I’ll be happy.”

 

“Will you?”

 

Regina sighs. “Does it matter?”

 

 _No. Yes._ “No,” she says aloud, and that has to be the right answer. Lady Swan doesn’t need her queen anymore and her queen doesn’t need Lady Swan in return and she could taunt Regina with a thousand stolen jewels and it means nothing more than their private war. They are no one but rivals, outlaw and the tyrant she would battle. “It doesn’t.”

 

She walks back to the balcony, pocketing Regina’s earlier discarded earrings, and climbs back down to Beetle.

 

* * *

Little John passes the notice to her and she crumples it in her hand and gives him an even smile that fools no one. “This isn’t a rebellion, John, it’s a band of brothers. We have no place defending whole towns.”

 

“Of course not.” His eyes glint with concern mingled with amusement. “I only thought you might want to loot the town along with the queen’s men.” Snow White had been hiding in a town on the other side of the forest for several weeks, and Regina had gotten wind of it and ordered punishment.

 

“I’ll take Al the Lesser and the Lost Boy with me,” she decides. They’re among the newest recruits but both have the background to fight alone- and, more importantly, neither has been around long enough to make the connections that Little John was able to.

 

She’s afraid most of all of the rest of her men picking up on her agenda. They aren’t Regina’s enemies. They _can’t_ be Regina’s enemies, because Regina has only one method of coping with her enemies, and Emma never wants to be pushed to the point of pure vengeance and hate against Regina. She bears this alone to protect her men _and_ to protect Regina, and she glowers at herself for acknowledging the latter.

 

So she rides northward with two fresh-faced recruits and contemplates her attack plan. “How far north is this town, exactly?” Neal asks warily.

 

“Not far,” she assures him. “Only a few hours. Even less if we ride straight through the woods.” It’s only an hour ride from Quinn’s den, actually, but she avoids that area when she isn’t climbing through trees and out of sight.

 

“What’s far north?” Al asks curiously. He’s from a kingdom deep in the east, more than a week’s ride from the Enchanted Forest. “Ogres?”

 

“Lots of ogres. A few hamlets. The Dark One’s castle,” she muses, remembering her own journey there.

 

Neal pales. _Deal gone wrong with the Dark One, then_ , she surmises. He wouldn’t be the first to be fleeing that creature. “But this is much closer than that,” she assures them. “We’ll be there before nightfall.”

 

They arrive at dusk to a group assembled in the town square, weapons out and eyes on the road like they think they’re going to be capable of protecting themselves against Regina. _Idiots_. An older woman stands at one end of the gaggle of men, crossbow at the ready and eyes on the full moon hanging above them, when she sniffs suddenly, eyes flicking to Emma’s shadow in the woods.

 

Emma holds up a hand. The woman nods slowly.

 

Quickly, Al scurries forward with the liquid she’d brought along and runs it in an even line against the stones of the outskirts of the town square, far enough from the fields and trees and wooden structures within. Neal slips into the group of men. Emma crouches at the beginning of Al’s line, waiting with a clay jug in hand.

 

It doesn’t take long for Regina’s knights to arrive, the queen leading them forward. “Give me those of you who fed Snow White!” she orders, voice sharp and angry.

 

The townspeople remain in stony silence.

 

“I will raze this town to the ground,” Regina warns them.

 

Again, silence. Then a single voice. “Hey. That was me, actually.” Neal waves, sheepish but with that patronizing grin that Emma had despised when they’d first met, and there’s a wave of curious murmur through the crowd at the admission. “Just being a good host, you know?”

 

“Seize him!” Regina orders, and a half dozen knights ride forward over Al’s line. Emma cracks the jug against the edge of it.

 

The fire she’d been hiding within sparks against the liquid and races along it, rising in a line of flames between Regina and her guards, and Regina snarls out a disbelieving, _“What?”_ and rears back. On the other side of the fire, the men are taking action, digging weapons into their attackers as Al dismounts one of the guards and rides his horse at one of his companions. The grandmother with the crossbow shoots one directly in the heart, and Emma whistles lowly, impressed.

 

Regina holds out her hand and the fire _leaps_ , pulled back into her palm and vanishing within it, but it’s too late. All six guards are dismounted and defeated and the men are crowing and Regina is fuming.

 

And then the ground begins to tremble around her and Emma climbs up onto a building as there are shouts of disbelief from the men and she can see, in the center of the crowd, the earth shimmering purple and melting beneath them. Al leaps from his horse to a market stall, dragging Neal by the scruff of his collar, and the men who can scatter and flee.

 

Regina and Rocinante vanish and reappear on the opposite side of the square and she waves her hand and there’s suddenly no sound at all in the square, shouting and cries muted so Emma can see the eerie vision of three men sinking into quicksand where there had once been stone, mouths open in silent screams. “Don’t defy me again,” Regina warns them, and rides through the square, scattering the villagers one more time and galloping over the hole in the earth as though it doesn’t exist.

 

* * *

They leave the town in silence. “We did save most of them,” Neal finally volunteers.

 

Al shakes his head. “But not all.”

 

“But not all,” Neal agrees. “Emma? Are you okay?”

 

She’s…numb, mostly. She’d foolishly thought that Regina’s abilities had been mostly limited to teleporting and fire and snatching people’s hearts, and she’d never imagined how easily Regina could destroy if she desired it. How can anyone defy her when she can kill them with a thought?

 

In her own twisted way, though, Regina is just. Regina hasn’t wiped out Emma’s Merry Men and she hasn’t attacked anyone but those associated with Snow White. Without Snow, she might even be a good ruler. With her, she’s a terrifyingly powerful tyrant. Emma shudders.

 

She says, “I’m going to take a different route home. You two go back to camp together.” She smiles, brushing aside her concerns. “Good work today.”

 

She goes to Quinn, riding Beetle over bushes and through the underbrush, and she’s nearly there when she hears the murmur of voices. And then a procession, a man and a woman walking with wolves milling around them, and between the two humans is a stretcher covered with a sheet.

 

She freezes, sudden dread enveloping her, and dismounts to climb up a tree to watch from above. Maybe the wolves can sniff her out from here, maybe not, but none of them react, too fixed on the body on the stretcher. “May you always run free beneath the moon’s pale light,” the woman murmurs, and sets the stretcher down as she peels down the sheet.

 

Quinn’s face is still beneath it, somber in death as he’d never been in life.

 

Emma lets out a strangled cry and the woman lifts her face to track her, their eyes meeting almost immediately. There’s recognition in the woman’s gaze- recognition like maybe Emma hasn’t been so subtle these past few years and maybe Quinn had known she’d still been looking out for her, and oh gods, _Quinn,_ this can’t be Quinn- and she offers Emma a slow nod. “Farewell, Quinn,” the woman says aloud, and the wolves howl in unison.

 

Emma feels wetness on her face and she can only stare in horror, tears pouring silently from wide eyes. Quinn is dead. Quinn is _dead_. She’d mourned him once already but she’d thought he’d be safe here, away from society, away from the people who would harm him, and instead he’s been killed somehow and she hadn’t been there to protect him.

 

She stumbles forward, forgetting her vantage point, and slips and falls down, bruising herself on branches as she grabs onto a new handhold. The wolves growl menacingly and she flees, returning to Beetle before she drops her head against his mane and holds on tight, struggling to breathe properly.

 

She doesn’t move for a long time, not until the wolves are gone into the distance and there are low voices somewhere close by. She picks up her head, urging Beetle forward, and they trot a few paces until they’re just outside another grave with another wooden marker for a child of the moon. Two cloaked figures are walking from it, and Emma recognizes one at once.

 

“Snow White?”

 

Snow whirls around, fumbling for a knife as her companion’s eyes narrow. “Who are you? What do you–“ She blinks, eyes widening as she catches sight of her. “ _Emma_.”

 

And then the pieces come together, so clearly that Emma shakes with rage before she knows for sure because she _knows_. Snow White is paying respects at a wolfman’s grave and Quinn is dead and there’s only one reason why this is happening. “Who killed Quinn?” she demands. “Who did it?”

 

But Snow is still gaping at her in awe. “I saw the posters of you and I thought I must be imagining things, it’s been so many years, but that was you. I can’t believe it. It was you all along.”

 

“She’s Swan Hood?” the other girl asks, eyeing Emma suspiciously.

 

Snow nods. “She saved my life when I was a girl. From…” She drops her head, eyes closing in understanding. “From wild wolves.”

 

The other girl gasps. Emma ignores her. “Wolfmen, yes. I was with a boy, do you remember?” Snow nods eagerly. “His name was Quinn. He was bitten saving your life.” Snow pales. “Now tell me, who killed Quinn?”

 

Snow stumbles over to her and wraps her arms around her so suddenly that Emma doesn’t think to push her away. She stands still, hands limp at her sides, and Snow holds onto her, tight and tearful. “You know who killed him,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry, Emma. Her guards follow me everywhere.”

 

She isn’t a girl anymore, isn’t quite as wide-eyed and naïve as she’d once been, but there’s that same warmth and love within her that Emma remembers well. This is a girl who’d learned to love from Regina, a girl who’d adored Regina with energy Emma had recognized in herself, and Emma’s hands twist uncertainly as Snow says, “I wish I’d known. I wish I’d been able to stop them.”

 

“It isn’t your fault,” Emma says automatically, and her thoughts shift to the one whose fault it incontrovertibly is.

 

Regina had threatened her if she’d continue to defy her. But this…this can’t be intentional. Shecan’t believe that Regina would have killed Quinn. They have limits, both of them, lines they don’t cross–

 

–And she’s still making excuses for the woman who’d murdered one of the few people in the world she loves, incidentally or not. She shakes her head, pulling away from Snow, and sees only compassion in the other woman’s eyes. “Snow,” she murmurs, putting a hand on her shoulder.

 

What happens next will break whatever shaky truce she has with Regina. She thinks of Quinn, laid out and silent and still on the ground, and she finds she doesn’t care anymore. _To hell with Regina._

 

“Let me help you,” she says, and Snow smiles through her tears.

 

* * *

She finds the two of them a cave in the woods, a quiet area far from the wolfmen and even farther from civilization. “There was this boy who used to live here. Raised by wolves- just wolves, not children of the moon-“ she hurries to clarify when Snow’s friend inhales sharply. “But he’s been gone for a while. I don’t think he plans to return.”

 

“Regina can see me wherever I am,” Snow says, breathless with worried eyes. “She has magic.”

 

“I know.” Emma tugs down the heavy blanket that protects the door of the cave. The inside is sparse but still inhabitable, a bed, a table, and a collection of extinguished candles that she lights for them. “I know Regina.”

 

Snow tilts her head, eyes furrowing as she observes her. “You do, don’t you? It wasn’t just that night or the ball, either. She _liked_ you.”

 

Emma refuses to respond to that. “She’ll only see a cave here. The woods. Nothing that will stand out enough for her to locate you. Stay here and you’ll be fine.”

 

“What about food?”

 

Snow’s friend touches her arm. “I taught you how to find fruit in the woods. We crossed a stream on our way here. And I can hunt for us.”

 

“I’ll bring you whatever I can,” Emma assures her. She remembers suddenly the two of them sitting atop a carriage, Snow shooting shaky arrows into the dark. “A bow. I can teach you archery.”

 

“You would do that?” Snow’s eyes shine and Emma feels odd like she had when Snow had embraced her. She knows truths about Snow that even Snow herself doesn’t know, knows what darkness Snow’s selfishness had wrought. And yet Snow would weep for a man she’d hardly known and hold the woman mourning him without any thought but comfort. Snow is still gentle and kind and Emma hasn’t known kindness without abandon like this before.

 

Snow shakes her head, suddenly adamant. “You can’t put yourself at risk like that. If Regina finds out… I can’t count how many people have been punished for their kindness.”

 

Emma shrugs. “Let her try. I know where she sleeps.” Snow looks alarmed. Emma says, “Joke. That was a joke.” Snow still looks alarmed. Her friend bites back a grin. “I’ll worry about me. You take care of yourself, okay?”

 

Snow flings her arms around her again, and Emma thinks of Quinn and thinks of this girl- still an innocent in so many ways, another who might die by Regina’s hands- and she doesn’t know why she’s doing this, to help Snow or hurt Regina or just to focus on something other than Quinn’s corpse, but she reaches up this time to put unsteady hands against Snow’s back.

 

* * *

She cuts off a small square of fabric from Snow’s cloak and draws on it the symbol she’d seen on the markers by the graves. She doesn’t know if any of the guards had escaped from the den to report back to Regina but she knows that Regina will recognize the print on the fabric, and she rides to Regina’s castle before night can turn to day again.

 

Regina is fast asleep as Emma slips through her wards into the room, her face free of darkness in slumber. Emma stares at her until she’s nauseous with mixed emotions, hatred and regret and longing, and she squeezes the cloth in her hand until her determination is renewed.

 

She lays it down beside Regina on her pillow, the gauntlet within it layered with announcements of murder and a change in her allegiance and- very simply- a single lasting emotion from Emma.

 

 _Enough._  


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m tweaking the timelines around The Shepherd and The Evil Queen a bit. It’s implied in canon that The Evil Queen happens a bit before The Shepherd, so Regina cutting off trade with George pressures him into an attempted alliance with Midas, but I think it works just as well if George is already suffering financially before Regina cuts off trade there- and her doing so is the last straw that has him adamant that David will marry Abigail. So The Evil Queen here happens during The Shepherd, and provides the perfect immediate lead-in to Snow Falls.
> 
> …Does anyone care about this. Lol. Anyway, this chapter takes place during The Shepherd and The Evil Queen. Next up will be Snow Falls before we move away canon completely until…Skin Deep. :)

She doesn’t return to Regina’s castle, but she has Al the Lesser on regular guard duty, tracking Regina’s knights’ movements. There are fewer tidbits on Snow White now- almost as if she’d vanished into the woods, Emma thinks wryly- but there are still rumors that end in executions, still people who spot her when she does venture out and are targeted for it.

 

They’d argued about it on one of Emma’s most recent visits. “It’s about hope,” Snow insists. “The people can’t lose hope that their princess is gone. I have to be seen for them.”

 

“People are dying, Snow.” She follows Al’s reports and saves who she can, but it’s never everyone. The overwhelming awareness of failure follows her everywhere, cuts deeply and feels like a burden she’d never agreed to take on for Regina. “Is that what you want for them?”

 

“Of course not!” Snow’s eyes had gone wide but instead she’d begun lessons with her bow, insisting that she’d help protect the people Regina targets. _Royalty_. Emma still doesn’t understand their reasoning, but Snow is stubborn and bent on exposure and the people welcome her so maybe there’s more at work here than just simple naiveté. And it isn’t _Snow_ who’s killing these people, even if she is putting them in danger. Snow isn’t the one to blame here.

 

She’d parted from Snow earlier that day and now she’s home, doing pull-ups in the outer edge of the camp and listening to Much and Will teasing Al about a letter he’d gotten earlier. “Does she seal it with a kiss? Write uncouth desires on hidden pages?” Will stretches out his hand. “Better let me see if there are any of those. I’ve gotten more than my share of love letters.” He preens and Much claps him on the back, guffawing.

 

“It’s not from _her_ ,” Al says, but he’s still clutching onto the letter, face twitching whenever he looks down. “It’s…it’s from a friend from before my exile. A captive in the palace.” He rubs his eyes. “There’s been a coup.” He looks dazed. “ _She’s_ started a coup. Against her fiancé.”

 

Emma hadn’t known that Al’s lady love had been a queen. She sighs. _More royalty_. She’d felt nothing but disdain at their privilege until she’d wound up taking one of them under her wing, and now they’re all proving to be more of a headache than she’d even expected. “Hey, Al–“ she starts, and then there’s the sound of scuffling in the wood.

 

Will jumps up, amusement gone from his voice, and he and Emma draw their bows and start forward. “Show yourself!” Emma calls, stepping forward.

 

There’s the sound of another blow and then Neal stumbles out of the wood, staggering into a tree and dropping. “There’s…a knight in the woods, looking for you.”

 

“For us?”

 

“For you,” a deep voice corrects her, and a vaguely familiar-looking man steps out into the wood. “I followed your brother out here, but I’m afraid I wasn’t quiet enough to make it all the way here. I thought I blended in subtly.” He grins like he isn’t half again Neal’s height and clomping around in armor, and she finally places him.

 

“Lancelot!”

 

“The very same.” He inclines his head. “And it’s you. Swan’s lover. Or a queen’s handmaiden?” He smirks at her. “King George was even more humiliated when the news came out.”

 

She still winces at the name, even after years of avoiding his kingdom. His treasury has been even more depleted, and there’s little left to his kingdom but gilded finery and starving villages, and her men enter only to feed those who need it. “So you’re back with him?” She takes his arm, guiding him out of the camp and away from her men’s curious eyes.

 

“So it seems.”

 

“What happened?”

 

He smiles knowingly at her, but his eyes are weary and dull behind his smile. “A queen,” he says. “What else?”

 

She exhales, long and tired, and Lancelot says, “I’m here on other business than a reunion, Swan.” He turns to face her, suddenly somber. “Prince James is dead.”

 

The news hits her like she’s been thrown into the center of a road as a carriage approaches and stampeded by a half dozen horses at once. “What?”

 

“He was struck down in valiant battle with the fighter Behemoth.” Lancelot places a hand on her shoulder and uses the other to fish out a tiny bag from under his armor. “I was able to retrieve this from his belongings. I thought I would bring you the news and something of his.” His eyes gleam with sympathy and she can only stare back at him. “The king is looking to suppress the news of his death. There are some politics at play. But I thought you should know what had happened to your brother.”

 

_Your brother_. She sinks to the ground, the words finally sinking in. Her brother is dead. The brother she’d barely known, the brother she’d barely seen in years. She’d kept her distance but a secret part of her had always imagined that someday they’d meet again, that James would learn the truth about his parentage and learn about her and they’d be… _family._

 

Family. She has a dozen brothers-in-arms and yet it’s never been the family she’d quietly longed for, never like she’d had fleetingly with Quinn or whatever she’d had as a baby princess. And now she’s lost her last remaining chance at family without ever seizing it in the first place. James is dead. She’d lost two brothers she’d never had to begin with and now she’s alone again.

 

“Thank you,” she manages, reaching out to clasp Lancelot’s hand. “I hope you…you get to do some good in George’s forces.”

 

He squeezes her hand back and nods gravely before he ducks back out into the wood toward the roads, and she settles against a tree trunk. She doesn’t want to dwell. She’s sick to death of losing people, and she doesn’t want to dwell on a what-might-have-been.

 

They’d danced together on their eighteenth birthday and he hadn’t known who she was. She’d stolen three of his favored horses once and ridden with her men in circles around him until he’d shouted curses at her and she’d fled laughing. She’d stood in front of his court and listened to him laugh at her audacity, _We’ve been played by a girl_.

 

A non-relationship built on ephemeral moments, nothing more. She squeezes her eyes shut and pushes the regrets deep, deep down, thinks of Snow or Al’s letter or bruised-up Neal rather than James, and when she opens her eyes she’s determinedly focused on anything but the brother who wasn’t.

 

She opens his pouch carefully and gapes at what’s inside. It’s a tiny clear bean, the kind that hasn’t been seen among men in centuries. How he’d gotten it, she can’t imagine, but she could buy whole kingdoms with that one little bean.

 

Instead she pockets it for now and tries to think little of the faint forlornness that accompanies the weight against her leg.

 

* * *

“Are you okay?” Snow asks. It’s been days since Lancelot had brought her the news about James and she’s still melancholy, staring out the window of the carriage they’ve rented for the day and struggling to ignore the pit of longing still in her stomach. It shouldn’t affect her at all. And somehow it’s been days and she still hurts at nothing.

 

They’d gone out to purchase Snow new clothing, better suited to her new lifestyle, and Emma had thought she’d been hiding her emotions better than this. Apparently not. “It’s nothing to worry about. I’m fine.” She musters a smile. “How are _you_ doing? Have you been able to hunt at all?”

 

Snow’s eyes light up, then dim. “I tried to shoot a deer yesterday and I hit it in the side!” She bites her lip. “Then I felt so awful about it I tried bandaging up the wound and now it’s been…living with us, I guess. Red said that she’ll take care of our meat from now on.” She shakes her head. “I don’t think I’m cut out for this.”

 

“I think you’d find yourself becoming more pragmatic if you were starving to death,” Emma offers, shaking her head at the wave of fondness that washes over her at that. “There are plenty of deer in the woods. One less will only keep the balance intact.”

 

“I guess so,” Snow says, unconvinced. Her eyes narrow. “But you still haven’t told me what’s wrong. You’ve been so sad lately.” She softens, putting a hand on Emma’s arm. “Sometimes all it takes to get it out is just talking about it. I want to be here for you.”

 

“It really is nothing.” But Snow is smiling up at her, waiting for her to open up, and she sighs and admits, “I had a twin brother.”

 

“That doesn’t sound like nothing.”

 

“It was. We barely knew each other. He didn’t even know I existed and I…I decided after a few years that it didn’t matter.” She’d been better off when she’d locked herself up in a tower of her own making after that day in King George’s castle (and Regina’s, she refuses to think about) and moved through life without _caring_. Now there’s so much to be vulnerable about, so much to feel that only brings pain. “He died recently.”

 

Snow squeezes her hand. “I’m so sorry, Emma.”

 

“I didn’t know him,” she repeats. “It really wasn’t…it’s just that he was my only family. And we were strangers to each other.”

 

“Sometimes that makes it hurt worse,” Snow says wisely, and Emma’s suddenly testy at the knowing look on the princess’s face.

 

“What do you know about it?” she grumbles. Snow had grown up in a loving home where she’d been spoiled to death- to the degree that she doesn’t even know now. There are no missed opportunities in her life.

 

Snow shrugs, dropping her hand to trace patterns onto her knee. “I’m an orphan too now. I lost my mother when I was just a child. And–“ She stares down at her fingers as they travel up and down her leg. “I know a bit about loving family you don’t really know.”

 

“Regina,” Emma guesses. So much of their conversation comes back to her, the specter of old regrets and longing hanging over both of them. And while Emma tones it down, listens and doesn’t share her own stories, Snow is a fountain of overflowing emotion about her stepmother, perplexingly infatuated with a woman who wants her dead.

 

Or maybe not perplexing at all. The villagers revile their queen, but Regina has an energy about her, charisma that would make anyone fall head-over-heels, and Snow’s life had revolved around her for so long that Emma is overwhelmed with pity for them both now. For Regina- always that Regina who’d once been- all alone with a stepdaughter who idolized but never _saw_. And for sweet Snow, filled with all the love in the world but never enough to understand those who’ve been stripped of the love they’d longed for.

 

“It took me so long to understand that the Regina I knew had been gone for years. But it doesn’t change…” Snow worries at her lower lip. “She’s so important to me. And I have no idea who she is. I don’t know what she was doing when she wasn’t around me, how she felt about…everything that she’s destroyed. I don’t know why being queen was so important to her that she’d live in a castle with people she’d apparently loathed for nearly a decade.”

 

“Do you think she had a choice?” Emma says, eyeing her dubiously. There’s no way Snow can be _this_ oblivious to what had gone on there.

 

Snow blinks at her. “Well, she was a witch. She could have killed me years ago.” She laughs like she isn’t sure she can anymore, low and restrained and uncertain. “Why would she take so long to claim my kingdom? What could she have–“

 

The carriage stops abruptly and Snow is heaved forward from her seat. Emma catches her, settling her down as she peers out the window. “What was–“

 

Ahead of their rented driver, a horse races past, circles around with its rider in a blur of brown and red before it slows. Queen Regina dismounts from Rocinante and strides toward the carriage. Emma hisses out a curse. “Get down! Get…” She looks around wildly as Snow takes her place by the window and gasps. “Under the seat.” This is a utilitarian coach, the kind with space for baggage in chests under their benches, and she pulls one out and opens it.

 

It’s a tight fit, but Snow does her best to squeeze in and Emma flips it around so that the open top isn’t visible before she leans back, eyes closed and bow on her lap, and waits for Regina to enter.

 

The door opens- softly, not with the bang of magic Emma had expected, and then there’s a swishing of skirts and the light scent of perfume just past her and then silence. She cracks open an eye.

 

Regina- _the Evil Queen_ , she corrects herself- is seated opposite her, where Snow had been moments before, her legs crossed and her head cocked as she watches Emma. Emma straightens. “What are you doing here, _Your Majesty_? Come to execute me?”

 

Regina says haltingly, “I’m…sorry about Quinn.”

 

Emma stares at her. Regina’s face twitches. “I didn’t understand why you’d…I found his den and spoke to another werewolf there.”

 

“Spoke to,” Emma repeats skeptically.

 

Regina rolls her eyes. “Yes, spoke to. Until she attacked me and I had to protect myself. That’s what you’re after, isn’t it?”

 

“And what are you after here?” Emma flicks at her bowstring and stares Regina down. “You’re not here to apologize. Why the hell do you care?”

 

“Well, I did hear that his last deed before death was trying to strangle Snow. I would never have hurt him for that.” She smirks.

 

There’d been a time when Emma would have been affected despite herself, softening with just an attempt at levity, but not anymore. Not after all Regina’s done. Not when Regina’s sitting opposite her, trying for laughter at Quinn’s death as though her apology had changed _anything._ “Yeah, you would,” she snaps. “You’d kill anyone even remotely connected with Snow, regardless of whether or not they deserved it- and _none of them_ do- and whether or not I love them, and what? I’m supposed to be fine with it because you’re sorry?” Regina is taken aback and Emma clenches her fist, the words coming in red-hot bursts. “And you’re not here to apologize, you’re here because you know I know where Snow is.”

 

She’d gone too far with that, suddenly remembering the girl huddled under her seat- Regina has this effect on her, where the whole world seems to fade away and it’s just the two of them wrangling with their respective emotions at each other- and Regina’s eyes darken. “So you do know. You’re hiding her?”

 

“Not in camp,” Emma says swiftly, the safety of her men foremost in an instant.

 

“Very well.” Regina waves her hand and the carriage begins to move, horses clipping as there’s a shout of outrage from the driver somewhere behind them.

 

Emma grips her seat, refusing to give Regina a vantage point to her fear. “You’re taking me captive.”

 

Regina smiles tightly at her. “I could torture the information out of you. I could wipe out your whole camp if you don’t tell me where she is.”

 

She keeps her face smooth and emotionless, but uncertainty wells up within her. “Could you?” For all their conflict, she can’t imagine a world where Regina would willingly devastate her like that. Somehow, she’s always kept herself separate from Regina’s victims in her mind, unable to believe that they’d ever cross that line. Even now, she can’t quite believe it.

 

Regina’s smile drops into a dark scowl. “Do you want to test me?”

 

Emma had been a pickpocket at fourteen and had since picked up the muscles to complement that swiftness, and she knows Regina intimately, knows how she’d react to an attack and what she’d do in response. In a flash, she has her trapped against the carriage door, a hand at her throat and her knee pinning the queen in place, and Regina stands very still. “Do you want to test me?” Emma counters.

 

Regina closes her eyes and doesn’t move, doesn’t even light Emma on fire. Emma is frozen in place, trapped with two impossible options of what she can do next.

 

They wait.

 

When Emma focuses, she can hear Snow breathing in the chest, she and Regina exhaling in tandem. Emma breathes in when they breathe out, and she can feel Regina’s pulse against her palm.

 

“I didn’t come here to find Snow White,” Regina says finally, and Emma knows it’s a lie but only partially. “Or…she wasn’t my priority. I’d have liked to keep you separate from all that.”

 

“All that. The public executions? Quinn’s death? Did you think I could stand back and let it happen?”

 

“No. I know who you are.” Sometimes even now, there’s a glint of something like love in Regina’s eyes. Emma looks away, heart tilting precariously. “A stubborn, useless fool.” Her words are scathing but her tone is carefully bland. “I didn’t want you to get hurt in the process,” she admits, the last vestiges of something beyond hardness in her voice, and it shatters Emma’s own carefully angry veneer. Her hand wavers.

 

“What else were you expecting would happen?”

 

“I was expecting you not to collaborate with a traitor, for one.” There’s anger building again in her voice and Emma drops her hand. Regina stumbles forward and Emma straightens her out instinctively, holds her by the arms and keeps her steady. With some visible effort, Regina deflates again. “I really am sorry about Quinn,” she murmurs, stepping back, and she fades away into purple smoke and the scent of apples.

 

“Not sorry enough,” Emma says, sinking down onto the bench where Regina had been sitting. The horses stop running and the carriage jolts to a stop, and Snow calls her name, muffled under the seat.

 

Emma pulls out the chest and Snow scrambles out, eyes wide and bewildered and afraid. But for the first time since Emma had met her, she asks no questions at all.

 

* * *

A few days later, she goes to Snow’s cave and finds nothing within it but ashes.

 

* * *

She nearly confronts Regina over it, nearly climbs into her castle to demand answers and attack her and search for Snow- there would have been a public execution, there _had_ to have been a public execution, and she’s an idiot. Regina had said she’d found Quinn’s den, and she must have had soldiers combing the woods for days to locate him. And if she’d known that Snow had been in Emma’s woods…

 

Snow had been so far away from camp, so far away from the wolves. This has to have been some kind of freak accident, not Regina. Regina couldn’t have found Snow.

 

She listens to rumors, follows trails, and finds nothing at all but Regina blowing through village after village with threats and rage and fire. And vague, vague hope.

 

* * *

“So, Neal,” she comments, walking with their arms linked. She makes a habit of traveling with her cloak, even now, and it gives her a slight advantage when she’s undercover. When she takes off the cloak and puts on the clothes of a simple village wench, she can easily pass as nondescript. Today she walks with a similarly adorned Neal as he heaves their sack of loot over his shoulder. Regina’s men had ravaged this village just yesterday, and they’re in need of food and deliveries from nearby towns. “Why’d you pick such an odd name as an alias?”

 

“It’s not an–“ She gives him a look. He sighs. “Okay, yes, it is. There was a boy I was close with in Neverland named Neal. From the Land Without Magic.”

 

“What happened to him?”

 

“He missed his mother.” Emma stares at him. Neal shrugs. “Neverland is…I’m sure you know the stories.”

 

“Peter Pan’s going to take you away from your mama if you’re a bad boy?” It had been a popular lullaby in some of the homes she’d lived in- which really says plenty about the homes she’d lived in. It might’ve said even more that she’d been annoyed at the fact that the rhyme had been exclusive to boys and she’d secretly longed to join Peter Pan and live in his world.

 

“Pan doesn’t take well to boys who don’t get over their mothers,” Neal mutters. “There are pirates in those waters who hate Lost Boys, and if you’re abandoned in Neverland…” He shakes his head. “I only made it out with the help of a fairy.”

 

Her eyebrows shoot up. “A fairy!”

 

“And a map. It was… Honestly, I’d have stayed in Neverland if I’d known that I’d wind up here.”

 

She nudges his side with her elbow. “Flattering.”

 

“You’re not _that_ bad,” he murmurs, and he’s suddenly looking at her with eyes that she doesn’t see very often- not since Regina, at least- soft and inviting and warm. She flushes and unhooks her arm from his, uncomfortable under his attention.

 

She’s had a few dalliances over the years since Regina. A village girl here, a boy in a tavern there, tiny and meaningless and fleeting. She isn’t interested in a relationship, and she’s never had a problem with her men before. The older ones still tend to see a grubby child when they look at her, the younger are all consumed with lady loves or aren’t interested in ladies at all…she’s never been confronted before with a Merry Man with a crush.

 

Neal catches her discomfort a moment later and says hastily, “Of course, I’d rather be in a different land altogether,” and he laughs nervously as she echoes his laughter.

 

“I’m…uh…I’m going to go have a look around,” she says, and smiles at him to couch the rejection. “See what other kind of help this town needs. You know where Luca’s kitchens are?” He nods. “We’ll meet back at camp later.”

 

She can’t hurry away quickly enough, and she’s walking rapidly through the village when she catches sight of the tail a familiar red cloak turning a corner. “Red? Red!” she calls, and the cloaked figure speeds up. “Red!”

 

Red breaks into a run and Emma hurries after her, dodging passersby and jumping over the merchandise that litters the side street. Red is fast but Emma is faster, years and years of reliance on being fleet-footed behind her, and she leaps over a sack of apples and lands heavily against Red’s back, sending her hurtling onto the ground. “What the hell, Red?”

 

“You’re not going to bring me back to the queen,” Red says breathlessly, eyes furious up at her. “You have no idea what I can do to stop you. I’ll…I’ll kill you!”

 

“ _What_?” Emma blinks down at her. “What are talking about? The queen– _Regina?_ You think I’m working with Regina?”

 

“Well, Snow came home one day and told me about your _meeting_ , and then I come back from the full- from a trip away from home and the cave is on fire. You sold us out!”

 

Emma shakes her head. “I swear I didn’t. I have no idea what happened there.” Red glares up at her and Emma meets her eyes as earnestly as she can. Red softens. About a hair. “Do you know where Snow is?” she demands, hope surging again. “I’ve been hunting for her for weeks.”

 

Red shakes her head. “I came here because there were rumors that…”

 

“…That she was in the area,” Emma finishes. “She needs our help.”

 

“How do I know that I can trust you?”

 

Emma helps her up and Red doesn’t run. “Did Snow tell you the circumstances of my meeting with Regina?” Red nods. “You know that if I wanted to capture Snow, I could have handed a chest-full-of-traitor out to Regina on the spot. I’m on your side, Red.” She holds out her hand.

 

Red hesitates, but she takes her hand firmly when she does. “Okay.”

 

It’s early afternoon in the village and they dodge carriages and guards fooling around in the street, arm-in-arm as though they’re out for a noontime stroll. Red sniffs the air, scowling. “This whole village smells like horse excrement.”

 

“I hadn’t noticed.”

 

“Lucky you.” Red licks her lips. “I can’t believe that Snow would just run off without finding me. Not unless she was terrified for her life.” She kicks at the ground glumly.

 

“You two are really close, aren’t you? Did you know her before her father died?”

 

Red shakes her head. “She stayed with us for a few weeks after. For…a whole month, I guess. Then we tried sneaking out the night of the full moon and the queen’s guards found us.”

 

“Your town was the one where Regina turned the ground to quicksand,” Emma realizes. “She’d figured out where Snow was hiding just a day too late.” Snow thrives on near misses, survival while eternally on the run.

 

They make their way back to the marketplace, skirting along the edges of the town. “You were there? Are you some kind of resistance fighter against the queen?”

 

Emma laughs. Hard. A little wildly. “Oh, no. I have…I don’t have anything to do with kingdom politics. I’m just an outlaw.”

 

“That sounds like kingdom politics to me.”

 

“It’s just…me getting on Regina’s ass. Nothing else.”

 

“Is it very important to you that you stop her from killing people?” Red asks curiously, and Emma’s intensely grateful when there’s a commotion across the village square.

 

A girl is being dragged across the square by Regina’s knights, shouting back at them with so much outrage that Emma’s eyebrows shoot up, impressed with her fearlessness. “Huh. What’d she do?”

 

Red takes a step forward, fingers playing with the edges of her cloak. “If the queen’s guards have a problem with her…”

 

“…Maybe she’s connected to Snow.” Emma’s bow is in her hand as the guards drag the girl up onto an execution platform and slam her against a wooden post. She aims–

 

–And an arrow embeds itself in the arm of the guard holding the girl. Not her arrow.

 

The guard struggles and a figure races up to the platform, brown-cloaked and swift, and the second guard draws his sword. The figure kicks him in a familiar high kick and whirls around, disarming him with her bow and using his sword to battle the others on the platform. “Snow White, how you’ve grown,” Emma murmurs, gratified and relieved at once, and they start toward the platform just as Snow kicks the last guard off it and pulls off her hood.

 

There are gasps and murmurs, the townspeople starting forward, and Snow looks down at the girl and smiles before she blinks ahead and sees Emma and Red across the square. Her eyes light up. _I’ll find you_ , she mouths, and hoists up the now-unconscious girl and leaps into a wagon driving by. The crowd cheers and Emma and Red stare as Snow vanishes again.

 

* * *

They don’t separate that day, waiting in the woods nearby for Snow’s return, and when nightfall comes, Red curls up under her cloak and Emma rests against a tree until her eyes drift closed and she’s dreaming.

 

Sometimes she doesn’t know if her dreams are memories or just indistinct desires, and tonight is no different. She’s riding in circles around Regina and Snow, she’s dancing in swaths of fabric and Regina is laughing silently, she’s hiding atop one of the towers of King George’s castle and dropping fertilizer on James’s head while he shouts curses into the sun. She’s riding with her men and she sees Snow White’s carriage moving past her and she thinks– she thinks–

 

“Emma. Emma, please wake up.” It’s Red whispering in her ear, and she jerks awake. “Someone is tearing through the woods.”

 

She hears it too. For a moment she thinks it’s an animal from how careless the noise is. But no. Someone is racing through the underbrush with no care for the terrain, tripping and catching on branches and wrenching free with loud cries.

 

“Regina’s knights,” she says at once, mentally calculating their distance from camp. “I swear, if she doesn’t stop sending them, I’m going to start shooting to kill.” She leads the way toward the noises, Red springing after her with ease, and she’s nocking an arrow when the stumbling figure hurtles into view and crashes into Red.

 

“Snow!” Red says, startled. “Snow, are you all right? We’ve been so worried.”

 

Snow is huddled in her arms an instant later, all but enveloped in Red’s cloak, and Emma can see only her face visible above Red’s shoulder. Her face is grim and her eyes- her eyes are _heartbroken_ , and when she makes eye contact with Emma she looks as though she might shatter.

 

“Snow?” Emma murmurs, her heart sinking.

 

Snow disengages from Red, launches forward and wraps her arms around Emma, and Emma holds on tightly. “We thought you were dead.”

 

“I’m…I’m not.” Snow shivers and sits back. “That cave you found for us- the boy who lived there is the queen’s huntsman now. The one who spared me. He tracked Quinn down and found us in the process, and the queen forced him to tell her everything. He sent a message to warn me just in time.” She calls Regina _the queen_ now for the first time, eyes still so pained that Emma pulls her in for another hug.

 

“What happened to you?”

 

“To me?” Snow laughs bitterly. “Nothing happened to me. I found a barn to stay in overnight and went on to the village where we met. I lived my life, happy and safe and secure even on the run, and a village of people died for me.”

 

“Snow–“

 

“No. No, I’m sorry, I know you love her. I did too.” Emma reels back and Snow begins to weep, tears sliding silently down her face as she speaks. “She killed them. I didn’t…I didn’t believe you for so long. I thought– I was so _arrogant_! People were dying and I thought they were better off with me?” She lets out a choked sob. “I can’t just pretend I didn’t…when I killed them too. I killed them all. I saw their bodies…so many bodies…Regina just…”

 

“ _Regina_ killed them.” She trembles at the image coming from Snow’s broken sentences. Regina had executed a town for sheltering Snow for the night. Regina had…

 

Regina goes too far, again and again and again, pushing the boundaries of evil and exceeding them with her search for Snow. She can’t blame Snow for this execution, naïve and careless as Snow had been. She can’t blame anyone but the woman who’d given the order.

 

She doesn't know how to process this anymore, to live with hatred and betrayal and grief for all that Regina has taken. Every life destroyed is another that weighs on her, irrational as that burden must be, another failure to protect–

 

To protect–

 

_Is it very important to you that you stop her from killing people?_ Yes. Yes, it fucking is. She hasn’t just been protecting Regina’s targets; in some perverse manner, she’s devoted her days to protecting Regina from taking those lives. To spare Regina a path of return that the Evil Queen has no desire for.

 

And while she’s been playing games, Regina is murdering the masses indiscriminately.

 

Emma’s heart is on fire in her chest. “I can’t…I have to leave this kingdom,” Snow says. “She’s hurting them because of me. And if I can’t stop her, I need to run away.” Her eyes are hard and determined under the tears now, and Red rushes to her and wraps her arms around her. “I’m going to go off on my own. Live in these woods until I can gather enough money for a ship to depart the kingdom. The people deserve…if I can’t give them a just rule, I can at least be selfless about this.”

 

She gives Red a tearful hug. “I swear we’ll be together again someday. I’ll send you messages and visit before I go. Both of you.” She meets Emma’s eyes again and there’s compassion in her gaze. _I know you love her. I did too_. Snow had seen too much in that carriage because Snow knows it too, understands what it means to love this Regina.

 

It’s an exercise in devastation and heartbreak, and Emma stays in her spot in the woods long after Red and Snow have departed, struggling to dream away feelings that should never have existed at all.

 

Instead she dreams of kisses and promises and another girl wrapped around her whispering, _Can we pretend? If only for tonight_ , and she wakes up panting out sobs of frustration and desire and loathing.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been an exhausting week and I haven't gotten to comments or anything in a while, but at least I finally edited this chapter! I'm gonna go sleep now for 100 years. :)
> 
> This chapter covers Snow Falls and borrows from Snow Drifts (though that is not and never will be canon in this fic). Warning for very brief non-graphic m/f in this one!

She’s sitting a half mile from camp, feeding Beetle a treat before they head out for some solo carriage-robbing- Midas’s daughter is meant to be passing this way today sometime and Alan-a-Dale still has that crush, so she’d opted to go alone- when someone drops out of the trees above her.

 

Normally, she’d have her bow out already from the moment she’d sensed the intruder coming, but she also recognizes the shadow across the sky and knows that sound of maneuvering through the trees. “How’s it going, Snow?”

 

Snow rises, a pinkness to her cheeks that hasn’t been present since the day that she’d returned from an encounter with Regina. “It’s okay. I stopped a carriage today on my own!” She beams with pride at it and Emma laughs, patting the spot next to her. Snow crouches down beside her, taking a cracker from her hand and offering it to Beetle. “And from a prince, no less. I’m turning into you.”

 

“You seem…happy.” The Snow Emma had known for years had been gone of late, replaced with a determined, bitter woman who’d wanted only Regina’s demise or her own self-exile. “And…hey! You took my carriage, didn’t you?”

 

“I beat Swan Hood to a target?” Snow grins again, hefting a pouch in her hand. Her brow furrows. “Oh no, did you need that for hungry townspeople? I can give it to you if people will suffer without it.”

 

“No, it’s fine. Abigail is headed to a ball- I guess the ball to introduce her prince-“ Emma says, eyes narrowing at the way that Snow’s cheeks redden even more. “I can just go there and make plenty. That must be enough money to leave the kingdom at last, right?”

 

Snow bites her lip, the flush vanishing and leaving her suddenly contemplating the pouch again. “Yeah. I…I guess so.”

 

“Or you could stay,” Emma volunteers, sharp eyes on Snow. “Regina’s eased up on her attacks since you’ve been hidden in the woods. If you stay out of trouble, there’s no need to leave the kingdom.”

 

“Right.” Snow brightens. “I’d hate to leave you and Red. And there’s always the chance that Regina might suffer some terrible accident and the kingdom will need me, and I–“

 

“Might meet that prince again?” Emma suggests.

 

Snow chokes on her next words. “What?”

 

“You’re in love!” She pokes Snow’s arm. “Or is it Abigail?”

 

“ _What?_ ”

 

“She’s beautiful and dangerous and very capable of running her kingdom. Half the Enchanted Forest is a bit in love with her.” Emma’s teasing now, feeding off of Snow’s wide-eyed stare as she goes on. “And I _did_ once have a run-in with her that might have suggested that she has equal interest in her lady suitors as she does her men.” Snow’s eyes go even wider. “You’re a princess, I’m sure you have a chance if–“

 

“It’s him! Charming,” Snow says hastily. “He’s the one I…I’m not _in love_. I just…” She shrugs helplessly. “He was kind of an idiot. And an ass. But also…not an ass?” She clears her throat. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. He’s to be married to…apparently the most eligible bachelorette of the Enchanted Forest.”

 

“So you robbed a carriage and fell in love with a future king.” Emma massages her temples, a headache coming on. “Good luck with that.” 

 

“What?”

 

Emma says brightly, “So tell me about this prince! Charming, you said? I’ve never heard of him before.” She pats Beetle on the snout and leans back against her tree. “And I’ve heard of a lot of princes. Sure he was the real deal?”

 

Snow shakes his head. “No, I’ve actually heard of him, maybe even met him before. He did look familiar. My father didn’t like us going to King George’s kingdom too often.” Emma’s eyebrows knit together. “His real name is James. Prince James.”

 

The shock is like being punched in the face. Emma manages, “That’s impossible. James is dead.”

 

“No.” Snow looks curiously at her, frowning at her distress. “He was very much alive. I can’t imagine that a ghost could set that trap on its own.” She’s glowing again, forgetting Emma to flush at her lap, and Emma sits back, troubled.

 

She trusts Lancelot to have told her the truth. If there’s an imposter running around pretending to be her brother, so be it. It changes nothing.

 

Nothing except that those regrets are piling on again, missed chances and a craving for family that she can’t deny. And if there had been a mistake…or if George had _done something_ to James, brought him back to life or tampered with his existence…she needs to know.

 

She offers Snow a smile and climbs onto Beetle. “I’d better get going. It’s over half a day’s ride to Midas’s kingdom if I’m fast.” She hesitates, reading the longing on Snow’s face. “Do you want to join me?”

 

Snow shakes her head. “No. It’s…there’s no use in it, is there?” She smiles and it isn’t quite hopeless, new love giving her eyes life that Regina had drained from them. “I’ll be fine. You go save people.”

 

* * *

Midas’s castle walls are solid gold, the decorations and platters and goblets all gold as well. It’s all lavish and excessive in tasteful ways, and Emma wears a stolen dress demurely and lurks in the corners, eyes on the man who stands with Abigail, making small talk as she looks more and more irritated with him.

 

He’s…James. Except that he isn’t, even if James _has_ lost a bit of weight and gained a bit of awkwardness in chatting up women. Emma knows James, even if it had been years since she’d stalked him around the kingdom in not-so-friendly sibling rivalry. She knows how he stands, how he talks, that smug little insufferable smirk that this prince can’t master… This isn’t James.

 

Abigail swans off and Emma slips into place, tucking herself into the false James’s arms and beginning to sway before he reacts to her presence. “I’m a friend of Snow’s,” she says when he opens his mouth.

 

His eyes soften immediately, the same dreamy-eyed gaze that Snow had failed to tamp down, and he asks, “What did she say about me?”

 

She inwardly laughs at the absurdity of this, of this man being anything like James. James would _never_. “Well, for one, she thinks you’re Prince James. Which we both know is impossible, don’t we?”

 

The man’s smile turns brittle. “What are you talking about? Of course I’m James.”

 

“No.” She steers them to a corner, the edge of the dancing, and leans in. “See, I’m James’s sister.” The man’s brow furrows. “ _Birth_ sister,” she clarifies, and he stiffens even more. “George knows who I am. And I know who James is. You aren’t him. James _died_ earlier this month.”

 

She waits for more denial, more lies and excuses until she loses patience and begins to make threats, but instead there’s something else dawning on his face. “You’re…”

 

“Not impressed with imposters?” she suggests, twirling away and returning. “Is this a glamour? Is George working with fairies to protect his kingdom’s alliance? I wonder how Midas would–“

 

“You’re _her_ ,” the man says, his arm tightening around her. They separate and come together again, dancing casually as only their faces bely the intensity of the discussion. “My mother said…I had a sister, too. Emma.”

 

“Emma,” she repeats, a chill running through her. She’s suddenly off-kilter, treading water in an increasingly growing ocean, and none of this makes _sense_. None of this is possible. What this fraud is implying…it can’t be possible. “Your mother named me Emma.”

 

“There’s magic to our names, and we retain them wherever we go. And you’re…” He looks in awe, stunned at this turn of events as much as she’s stymied by it. “My name is David,” he says, just as the doors blow open and Emma’s stomach sinks.

 

Regina stalks into the room, smug as always as the room silences around her. Midas hurries over, makes appropriate greetings as knights march in around her, and Emma drops David’s hands and slides back into the crowd. He searches for her at once and Regina’s eyes roam the room and Emma stands in a corner, missing the cloak hidden in Beetle’s saddlebags with all she has.

 

She slips a few stray golden flowers into the folds of her dress and twirls with the crowd, follows the steps of the dance and fitting in as easily as she can as she slides toward the door, avoiding notice up until the moment she makes another quick step-step-turn and lands in Regina’s arms.

 

“Nice try, Lady Swan,” Regina purrs in her ear. “Come to pay your respects to your new sister-in-law? Did you think I wouldn’t notice you? I always notice you.”

 

There are stares from around the room, murmurs at the Evil Queen dancing with unknown royalty, and Emma tugs herself free from Regina’s grasp. “Let _go_ of me.”

 

“Emma…” The crowd shifts and someone bumps into her. She teeters in her heels and pitches back into Regina.

 

She feels good, warm and familiar even laced into an elaborate black dress, Evil Queen chic, and Emma hates herself for how her body relaxes in Regina’s grasp. “I thought you were done with me. You gave my face to the whole kingdom just because I showed up at your palace. Why are you still pulling this crap?” she hisses.

 

Regina scowls at her. “I don’t know. It’s none of your concern.”

 

“It’s none of my…” she echoes disbelievingly. “Oh, fuck _off_.” She shoves Regina back and breaks free.

 

Then rounds back around in a fury. “No. Who do you think you are?” She’s being drawn close to Regina now, the queen guiding her as she smirks around the room. Emma’s a _conquest_ tonight as Regina upholds her image, and she can see David breaking through the crowd toward them. Abigail catches him midway through, hissing a warning into his ear, and he folds his arms and glares at Regina.

 

Emma doesn’t know how to feel about that but she leans in, lowering her voice. “Why is it that the moment that I’m done with you is when you start moving in on me again? Are you this incapable of letting anyone free from you?”

 

Regina lips purse in stubborn confirmation and Emma’s grip on her tightens. There’s a murmur from around them, raised eyebrows at their positions, and Regina slides her hands to Emma’s waist proprietarily. Emma slides her hands to rest against Regina’s shoulder obligingly and snarls in a mutter, “You killed someone I love. And you think I would…” She breaks off, parting from Regina and hurrying toward the doors, uncaring of the whispers that follow her.

 

She makes it down to where Beetle is harnessed, approaching him in the woods before she’s grabbed by a guard dressed all in black. “What the–“ This is _not_ happening tonight. Hasn’t there been enough–

 

“Swan Hood! It’s Swan Hood!” he bellows, jerking her painfully by the arm, and more knights charge forward, emerging from the darkness. An ambush. She’s been ambushed by Regina’s guards.

 

She grits her teeth and pulls an Al the Lesser move, sliding down to duck between two guards and seize their swords from their belts before she doubles back to slash at them, whirling around with both swords moving so she can down two guards at once. Her muscles strain with the effort and her head is pounding at the shouts around her and there are too many knights, too many people rushing her at once…

 

There’s a flash of purple energy and then a hooded figure- a figure in _her_ cloak, she realizes a moment later- rushing at the knights and battering them with blows- is her protector holding a weapon, or are the knights being simply blown backward?- and more guards congregate, Midas’s and Regina’s alike, and Emma brandishes her swords again.

 

The hooded figure lands at her back and she _knows_ an instant later, recognizes the warmth and the scent as Regina fires invisible blows at the guards and Emma cuts them down. “Why are you following me everywhere?” she demands. “Can’t you give me some _time_?”

 

“My mistake,” Regina growls out, yanking one of the swords from Emma’s hand to swing it at a knight. “I didn’t know you were a delicate little flower who’d rather hold a grudge than have your life saved.”

 

“Hold a grudge? Hold a _grudge_? Oh, I’m sorry, is my grief not valid because I haven’t murdered a village over it?” She slices one guard in the shoulder and he goes down. Regina fires a burst of energy at another over her shoulder, sending him staggering back against the wall of the castle.

 

“You heard about that.” Regina sounds piqued. “It was a…standard execution. They were traitors harboring Snow White. I gave them a chance to save their lives and they refused.” A new wave of knights arrives behind the felled ones, and a sword narrowly misses Emma’s chest, embedding into her left shoulder. “Should I allow them to continue treason with no consequence? Have you seen Snow White make an appearance since?”

 

She speaks about it reasonably, as though the murder of innocents is debatable, and Emma thrusts a sword into someone’s thigh and snaps out, “You’re despicable.”

 

“You’ve been spending too much time with Snow White,” Regina retorts in a snarl, and she twists to block another blow from behind Emma just as Emma sees the archers at the top of the castle balcony.

 

The arrows land in Regina’s side with stunning accuracy and Emma grabs her as she cries out, hauls her over her shoulder and runs through the area they’ve cleared to reach Beetle at last. The arrows are still embedded in Regina but there’s no time to waste, and she stabs wildly around her as she drapes the hooded figure over Beetle’s back and rides into the woods, both of them slipping and Emma hanging onto Beetle for dear life.

 

Regina groans as Beetle shifts under them. “Emma–“

 

“Save it.” She swallows, glancing back and sliding an arm around Regina’s waist. Regina slumps forward, lurching toward Beetle’s mane, and Emma holds tight.

 

It only takes a short time to lose the knights, and she slides off of Beetle and gingerly eases Regina down to inspect the damage. Three arrows buried into her side. A fourth half out of the back of her thigh, painting a picture of Regina too distracted by the attack on Emma to see the incoming blows to her turned body.

 

“I _hate_ you,” Emma grumbles, and begins to ease the arrows out.

 

Regina flinches, eyes still shut but her breathing ragged. She’s dressed in the most casual clothes Emma had seen her in since she’d begun training with the Dark One, leather vest and soft brown trousers a mismatch for the severe makeup still on her face from the party. Emma’s cloak remains unharmed, catching onto the fletching at the back of the arrows. “I saved your life,” Regina mutters, teeth gritted against the pain.

 

“I don’t _want_ you to save me.” She pulls out the first arrow and Regina presses a finger to it, raw magic swirling out into the cut to fill it. “I didn’t ask for it.”

 

“So I’m supposed to let you die next time.”

 

“I can fight my own battles!”

 

Regina laughs, her breathing still shallow underneath it. “Apparently not.”

 

“So did you miss the part where you got shot full of arrows for getting in the way?”

 

“Are you rewriting history already?” Regina says, cranky again. Emma yanks another arrow out of her, a little less carefully, and she gasps in agony.

 

“Sorry.”

 

Regina doesn’t respond, sweat beading on her forehead as she focuses on the magic filling the jagged tear of skin, and Emma cringes a little at the blood leaking through the glow. “I’m…I’m not going to thank the evil queen for helping me out with the knights she set on me.”

 

“Why…” demands Regina, jaw clenched, but it still emerges as a half whine. “Why do you always have to bring the Evil Queen into everything?”

 

“Why do _you_?” Emma retorts, sliding out the final arrow.

 

“I _was_ done with you,” Regina says, picking up a thread Emma had thought they’d abandoned. She leans against Emma’s thigh as purple magic swirls around her wounds, drawing Emma’s cloak around her. “I rarely thought of you after that day when I fetched you from George’s castle and we… Maybe…once a day, sometimes less.”

 

“That’s rarely?” Emma says dubiously. It isn’t far off from how often her thoughts had turned Regina, to be fair. Not that she’d been pining.

 

Regina gives her a dark look. “ _Often_ less, as time passed. I had other people on my mind. I wasn’t concerned with some outlaw in the woods when my vengeance was close.” She heaves a long-suffering sigh. “Then you started playing games with me and I…” She hesitates. Emma watches her, stone-faced. “I wanted to hold onto you, Emma,” she whispers. “You were the only thing about me untouched by Snow White and her damned father. I thought we could…”

 

Emma stares at her, disbelieving. “What? Live happily ever after in your castle? Did you think I’d be able to stand back and let you run around wiping out villages?” Regina blinks like _yes_ , she does think that, and Emma is nauseous at the image of it, at this Regina who still never understands how deep she’s fallen. “There’s a line, Regina. A line you cross _daily_ in your quest for vengeance. You go further and further, and every day you sink a little deeper past the point of no return.”

 

She pulls away from Regina, scoots around to the next tree while Regina props herself up to watch her, eyes dark and fathomless. “I wanted you to be redeemable. I think…you still think you can come back from all this when Snow’s dead, don’t you?”

 

“You don’t know what I think.”

 

“You can’t. You can’t come back from any of this. What do you think is going to save you? Love?” Emma laughs harshly. “Do you think you can kill people- the people I’ve spent my life protecting- and I’ll run into your arms?”

 

Regina watches her silently, eyes still hard like she’s humiliated and furious and hurt. Emma curls up against the tree, shivering.

 

She’s so tired of being strong all the time, of refusing to surrender for even a moment. She wants– She _wants_.

 

“I wish…I really wish I could,” she admits in a whisper, and the veil falls from Regina’s eyes and there’s lightness in them. There’s the hint of sun beyond the murky sea and Emma trembles at how strong the desire is to part the veil even more and find light glinting in pools of gold, to pull Regina back to a place where she can touch her without loathing them both. “Dammit, Regina, I want nothing more than that.”

 

“Then come back,” Regina murmurs, eyes intent on her at once. “Come back to me. You can…you can make the rules. I’ll be whoever you want me to be.” She pauses, and the next words emerge with difficulty. “I’ll call off my guards, make sure there are no more…incidents. Just Snow White. Give me Snow White and then we can be forever.”

 

She moves with effort, wincing at the cuts on her side as she clambers over to Emma, and she presses her lips to hers. They’re still soft, gentle even when Regina is this _person_ , twisted and evil and so distant from the girl Emma had fallen in love with.

 

Emma closes her eyes, holds back from kissing for as long as she can until she’s sobbing at the tenderness of it, surging forward and holding Regina tightly and kissing her back, and it’s still _Regina_. Regina is still there, deep within the Evil Queen, and the awareness of that cuts worse than believing that there’s nothing more to find.

 

This is Regina, her Regina, and she kisses like she believes that this is it, that Emma’s hers again as well, that this is all they’ve needed and they’re going to rise from this clearing together. Regina still doesn’t understand anything she’s said, and Emma lets herself be weak for a moment, to hold onto her like she’ll never have to let her go. To kiss her one last time when it’s been so long and she still loves too hard.

 

In a flash, she remembers the pouch she carries with her, the dull-colored bean within it that could take them away from here. To a place without magic, without Snow, with nothing to stand between them anymore. They could be _free_ , Regina could be better without vengeance powering her.

 

But it can’t erase the past. It can’t change Regina, no matter how easily she can let herself believe it would. It’d only lead to more pain in a new world, Regina just as uncontrollable with new weapons at her disposal. Magic hadn’t made Regina like this, Regina herself had, and she’s only lying to herself to believe otherwise.

 

And then she can’t hide anymore and Regina is gazing at her, close enough that their breath still mingles, and she breathes, “I love you. I do. But no one’s going to be able to save you from yourself anymore. Not even me.”

 

Regina stumbles back on her knees until she’s rocking back into a sitting position and she’s a safe distance from Emma again. She laughs mirthlessly, mouth puffing out little breaths while her eyes blaze anew. “You’ll regret it,” she says in a low rumble.

 

“I already do,” Emma says honestly, and Regina lets out a frustrated growl and vanishes, Emma’s cloak puddling to the ground in soft folds where she’d been.

 

Emma crawls forward to pull it to her, clutching it to her as the wind blows ferociously against her wet cheeks and she can still taste Regina’s lips against her own.

 

* * *

She doesn’t go home that night. She doesn’t trust herself in camp, surrounded by the men who count on her to be their leader. She doesn’t trust herself around Snow, flushed with star-crossed love and the promise of a future. She feels empty and reckless at the same time, unpredictable and ready for the worst.

 

She hadn’t packed a bedroll or prepared for anything more than a quick raid on a princess’s coach, and now she wraps herself in her cloak and curls up on the ground, staring up through the trees at the castle that towers over her. She sees Abigail standing on a balcony, gazing out into the distance, and below her on a second balcony, David is doing the same.

 

David, who might be her brother.

 

She keeps her eyes on him as he stares in the direction of her woods, likely thinking of Snow. She wonders if he’s thinking of her, too, and remembers his awe when he’d looked at her. It’s different than anything she’d had with James, taunting him from afar and he knowing her only as Swan Hood. She’d danced with James one night a decade ago and he’d heard her name and known nothing.

 

She’d danced with Regina that night with James, too.

 

She shivers and pulls her cloak closer to her, rolling over so she’s protected from the wind by Beetle’s bulk and so she can’t see David anymore, and her eyes finally begin to drift closed.

 

“Emma?” says a low voice from behind her, and she jolts up, reaching for her bow.

 

“Who’s there? Show yourself!” She swings her bow around, turning it to point at the direction she’d heard the voice.

 

A figure emerges from the woods, hands raised. “Hey, it’s just me.” Neal smiles uncertainly at her. “Sorry I surprised you. I know you were only supposed to be out for a few hours, so I got worried.”

 

She lowers her bow. “How’d you find me?”

 

“Al found your friend- the one you try to hide from the camp-“ He grins at her. “And she told him that you went to Midas’s castle. I wasn’t going to ride all the way out here until I saw a procession of Queen Regina’s guards returning, bruised and banged up, and I thought you might’ve needed a hand.” He scratches the back of his neck, suddenly shy again, and she sets down her bow very carefully.

 

Recklessness still courses through her, and she thinks for a moment of Regina bent over her, lips pressed to hers. _Come back to me_.

 

And she never can, never will, and she takes a step forward until she’s staring into Neal’s eyes. Neal who likes her enough to go charging across the kingdom after her and who’s…uncomplicated, easy, and she never has to love him like she loves Regina. She never has to open herself to that pain ever again if she throws herself into something else.

 

She presses her lips to Neal’s and he kisses her back and then they’re moving with each other and Emma just wants to _forget_ , to surrender to something that’s only bodies crashing together and not hearts left bleeding on the ground, nestled in a cloak with a swan etched across its back.

 

* * *

She dreams of long hair tucked under her chin and apple-scented kisses pressed to her breast, and she’s startled when she wakes up with a man wrapped around her instead. He wakes up with a drowsy hum, rolling over and then rolling back, eyes crinkling in a smile at her. “Hi.”

 

“Hi,” she echoes, smiling back. In the light of day, forgetting her troubles with Neal seems unwise in a way that a random boy in a bar never would have been. But he’s gentle and he cares about her and she can’t quite regret it. “Thanks for coming after me.”

 

“No problem.” Neal gestures at the ground. “So, you and the Evil Queen, huh?”

 

“What?”

 

“You called me Regina, like, thirty times last night.” He smiles again and she sees only faint vestiges of discomfort in his eyes and something like understanding. “I think I might’ve fallen for the wrong girl, huh?”

 

“There’s nothing there. I had a…bad night.” She rubs her eyes and focuses on the easiest of her current dilemmas. “I think I met my brother at that ball.”

 

“Brother?”

 

“It’s a long story. Complicated. I don’t even know if he was telling the truth.” The suspicion had been lingering in her mind all night, even though David had looked at her with so much _truth_. He’d known her name, but so do most the people in the kingdom. There are wanted posters papering the trees, and if David is just a con artist, what’s one more victim to him? “I never knew my parents.”

 

Neal raises his head upwards in sudden understanding. “You were a traded baby. Of course you were.” He sounds aggravated, frustrated at something beyond Emma, and when he looks back down it’s with a scowl. “My…my father deals in babies.”

 

“Your father.”

 

“Who do you think I’ve been hiding from?” He’s shifting with nervous energy at once, eyes turned north again as they so often are. “I’m not going to speak his name. I can’t risk him finding me. But you know who he is.”

 

She remembers for a moment a castle in the mountains, a library packed with drawers, two wound-up scrolls with King George’s name on them. “I guess I do.” She blinks at him. “You’re hiding from _him_?”

 

“Starting to get why I’m on edge all the time, huh? Do you know what kind of life it’d be if he knew where I was? I’ve been trying to get back to the Land Without Magic, because at least there I’ll be…” He stops, looking down at what she’d fished out of her cloak’s inner pocket. “What’s that?”

 

She holds it out, palm-up, smiling up at him and pushing away the temptation that still lurks beneath the surface, roiling with wants she refuses to contemplate anymore. “A gift. I don’t have any use for it.”

 

He lifts the pouch, gingerly turns it over into his palm, and his eyes widen at the bean that falls into his hand. “Emma, how in the world…” He closes his fingers around it and puts it back in her palm. “I couldn’t take this from you. There are precious few left in the world.”

 

“Where am I going to go?” She turns her hand over his, dropping the bean back into his hand. “This is my home. This is where I’m needed. You’ve been desperate to get away.” She smiles up at him, drawing her cloak more tightly around herself. “Go. Build yourself a new life away from magic, Neal.”

 

“Baelfire,” Neal corrects her, and he kisses her on the cheek. “My name is Baelfire. Be careful, Emma.” He hurls the bean onto the ground without ceremony and green magic whirls around it, growing deeper and deeper until there’s a whirlpool in front of them and Beetle and Neal’s horse are braying and Emma is standing back, arm in front of Beetle as Neal flashes her one last smile and leaps into the portal.

 

For a moment she wants to follow Neal into the portal as she’d imagined fleeing with Regina earlier, jumping into a land away from magic and power and temptation. Neal understands because his father is the Dark One and she’s in love with the Evil Queen and it’s easier to run sometimes, to hide in worlds where they can’t follow and exist beyond the tethers that hold their loved ones to the Enchanted Forest.

 

For a moment.

 

But she has so much more to do with her life than run from Regina. She has the Merry Men back home and she has hungry villagers to feed and Regina’s death toll to keep down and she might even have a brother in the castle above her. She might even have a _family_ , and Neal has offered her the keys to it. She has a life here beyond the future Regina had promised to her, and she wraps an arm around her stomach and walks to Neal’s horse, picking through his supplies.

 

“Hey, Beetle.” She strokes his mane and he nuzzles her shoulder. “You good for a ride up north?”

 

First things first, she’s going to get her answers about David.

 

* * *

Riding alone means fewer breaks, less sleep, and she’s already gotten a head start by leaving from Midas’s kingdom. It means less time for thinking and even less for dreaming, and she’s grateful for that, at least.

 

Regina’s words follow her but it’s her eyes that haunt Emma most, light and rich like pools of molten gold. Like a promise of _we can be forever_ and there’s still a possibility that she could change, that Emma returning to her could change everything.

 

And that’s the part of this that burns most, Emma thinks, urging Beetle on faster. It’s so wholly manipulative of Regina to offer to stop hurting people in exchange for Emma. _In exchange for Snow_ , she reminds herself. Emma _can’t_ change Regina but she’s spent an overwhelming amount of time struggling to reduce her body count, never quite digging Regina out of the hole she’s in but snatching away her shovel when she can. And Regina promises her everything she’s longed for but it’s a promise she can’t trust Regina to keep.

 

If only…

 

But it doesn’t do her any good to dwell on possibilities, and she’s relieved when she finally sees the Dark One’s castle looming up ahead. There’s no future with Regina, but maybe she has family, the kind she’d told herself she hadn’t needed until it had made her ache with yearning. Maybe she has David and she could risk Midas’s wrath to steal him away to the Merry Men before he’s married. She can have Snow and David and her men and to hell with Regina and her vendettas.

 

To hell with Regina and her promises.

 

She remembers the last time they’d entered this castle, and this time she fires her arrows before she enters the hall, dodging empty suits of armor and bears and a vicious leopard that the Dark One has acquired sometime over the past decade to charge into the main room of the castle.

 

The secret door has moved and it takes Emma a few sweeps of the room before she locates another, a false wall that slides open to reveal a winding staircase. She finds her way back to the library and makes a beeline for the wall of documents, hand sliding down until it lands on King George’s name. _Three_. Three contracts inside the shelf when she knows there had once been only two.

 

The first she pulls out has _James_ written across the seal, and she hurriedly puts it back inside. She knows what’s in that.

 

The second says _Emma_.

 

She breaks the seal and opens it, scanning the contract for information. It doesn’t specify how many siblings she has, only the circumstances of the exchange. She’d been given to the Dark One in exchange for _three doses of caraway_. _Caraway_. She frowns. She’s heard of it, though it’s said that the magical crops have been all but gone since a greedy tyrant had once tried to keep it all for himself. Nowadays it’s used mostly as a spice.

 

Once, though, its seeds were said to save babies born too early.

 

Is that why her parents had given her up? To save all three of their children? She opens James’s now, reads his contract and snorts with disgust. They’d given him up for a farm. _That’s_ what she’d expect from parents who would sell away two of their children.

 

She takes out the third contract, ripping past the _David_ to inspect it. David had offered himself for George to support the farm and his mother. And this contract makes no secret of who David is. _The final child_.

 

Her brother indeed. She has a brother in the world, a brother who dances with her and looks at her like she’s a revelation and nearly charged the Evil Queen to protect her. David doesn’t even know her and he’s already connected, they’re already both awash in possibilities, and Emma dares a smile as she stares at the contract. It’s too much to believe. It’s more than she’s ever had.

 

She’ll ride down to Midas’s kingdom again now, talk to David and run if he’ll join her. He might even take her to his- _No,_ she tells herself adamantly, she doesn’t want to meet the woman who gave her up. But she _could_. She could now. She inhales, slow and satisfied, and turns around with another smile.

 

The Dark One smiles back.

 

He’d been peering over her shoulder at the documents and she hadn’t noticed, too absorbed in the revelations of her past, and now he grins at her through sharp teeth and cackles with delight. “I’ve been waiting for you, dearie.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one takes place during Skin Deep and Lacey (and makes reference to many, many more episodes). 
> 
> Neal is in here a bit, though not romantically; and Emma very briefly kisses a lady here who isn't Regina, though odds are that most of y'all won't even notice that it isn't her. (what is this chapter.) I hope you enjoy! Updates should be a bit quicker now that Freefall is done.

_She’s dolled up in a fine silver dress, walking smoothly past men as they bow to her and open their mouths to ask for a dance. She has no patience with them, foppish and greedy with their eyes on her weakened kingdom. Her father’s finances have been suffering but his title remains, and hapless princes would ingratiate themselves with her with kinghood in mind._

_Emma has better ideas, the sort that would make her father rage, had he known what she’d been planning. Instead he presides over the room, eagle-eyed as he watches her reject noble after noble, and she can feel his irritation as strong as his curiosity._

_She steps past a duke twice her age and smiles thinly at the woman who’d been regarding him with disgust. “Your Majesty.”_

_“George’s whelp,” Queen Regina retorts. “No serving maids to humiliate at this party?”_

_She snickers. “My father has begun to use only the oldest and least attractive servants he can find at public functions after that incident. It’s as though he believes I’m fucking the whole castle.”_

_“Imagine that,” Regina says dryly. “Goodnight, little girl.”_

_She bristles at the dismissal. “I’m three years younger than you at most.”_

_“And still so very out of your league.” Regina sweeps off, her guards moving to place a barrier between them, and Emma scowls, turning in defiance to dance with the closest noble._

_He’s old and glitters with scaly skin and his eyes are mocking as he bows to her. “You won’t escape this,” he warns her. “You’ll never–“_

“–break free of my prison.” The castle disappears, the people gone, and her feet are no longer on the ground. Emma inhales sharply and wheels forward, pitching toward the ground, but something holds her tightly in place.

 

She isn’t dressed up anymore, isn’t _Princess Emma_ , and it’s the Dark One who stands in front of her. “What have you done to me?” she rasps out, shaken from the vivid dream.

 

“I’ve done nothing.” The Dark One waves at the netting that holds her. “I still have need of you, Lady Swan, so you will survive. But I don’t need you to be _sane_.” He cackles merrily and she looks around wildly, straining to see what holds her.

 

It isn’t netting as much as it’s clear, silky latticework, wrapped around her arms and legs and torso so she’s trussed up in a corner of the floor. The webbing is all over the room, draped across the ceiling and the walls and down to the floor, and an enormous spider scuttles along it, string still slipping from its back. “A spider web,” she murmurs, heart stopping.

 

She flies into a panic, thrashes wildly and wriggles out of the light cocoon that holds her and the Dark One says, “A Web of Possibilities, to be more precise. One of only three known in all the realms. It can nourish you and keep you alive for my purposes, but you will spend the duration of your punishment haunted by so many impossible possibilities that by the end of it, you won’t know what is real and what isn’t. Or what _could be_.” He grins, baring uneven teeth. “No one steals from me. _Twice_.”

 

She stumbles to her feet and races to the exit, fingers scraping at the cobwebs over the doorway. But these are stronger, more aggressive, and they seem to take a life of their own when she touches them, winding tightly around her so she’s _trapped, trapped, trapped_ and the Dark One waves his hand and disappears from the room.

 

She says, “Fuck you,” to the air and _tightens her grip on Henry’s hand._

_He seems less certain than she is, leaning back toward Regina with his free hand half-raised to her, and Regina takes the opportunity to sink down onto the hospital bed and wrap her arms around him. “I love you, I love you more than…curses and vengeance and anything else that got between us. I swear, I’m going to be–“_

_“You’re going to be nowhere,” Emma cuts off, still furious, and she drags Regina away from Henry, ignoring both their protests, and backs her against the wall. “Seven years, Regina! You played us all like puppets for seven years, and you still expect us to…“_

_She catches her breath, afraid to speak her next thoughts, and Regina slumps against the wall. “Get out,” Emma orders. “Get out and run back home. I’m staying at Mary Mar- at Snow’s with Henry. I don’t want to see you.”_

_Regina leaves and Henry says, “They’re going to kill her.”_

_“You were right, Henry.” She grits her teeth. “We didn’t remember, but you were right to hate her. She’s the Evil Queen.”_

_“She’s also my mom.” He chews on his lip and stares down. “And she really does love me. I didn’t think–“ He takes a deep breath. “Ma, I want us to go back home.”_

Home is too far away to even dare to dream of.

 

* * *

She dreams in decades, in stories that begin with birth and seem to stretch for years and years until she awakens, a fresh set of webbing wrapped around her when it’s over. She marries young to the first craftsman who asks her and lives in vague discontent with a brood of children and the sensation of _this is all wrong_. She runs with Neal and they build a new family in a world that only looks alien when Emma opens her eyes. She urges the Merry Men into anarchy instead of just thievery and they’re all wiped out, all too young.

 

She wakes up and sleeps and never quite knows what’s real and what’s the lie. Sometimes in her dreams, she’s still in this room. Sometimes she dies in it, sometimes the Dark One frees her, one time Regina appears in a cloud of purple smoke and burns away the spider webs and holds her in her arms and kisses her.

 

She thinks about Regina far too often, emotions muddled by whichever life they’re living in at that moment. In one she’s a dark knight, fighting for Regina’s kingdom and sharing her bed. In another, Regina had left with her years ago to hide in a simple village in another kingdom and they sneak kisses over their simple dinner table while Henry complains about it.

 

_Henry. HenryHenryHenry._

_Who the hell is Henry_.

 

She doesn’t know him, not when she’s awake (is she awake? She’s never certain) and her head is pounding and she doubles over and gags at the scent of the spider, just departed from spinning a new web around her. In her dreams, he’s present more than the Merry Men or Snow or George or anyone but Regina, who dominates her future as she always does (and Emma cries until she vomits when she understands that their lifetime together is a farce, that it had never been so easy to love Regina). She sees herself kissing him and bands of light vibrating from the love of it. She sees herself watching as Regina is the one to kiss him. She sees Neal holding a baby in his arms and she sees David and Snow with him and she doesn’t know _how_ he is.

 

She knows that he’s small (until he towers over her one day and laughs when she starts wearing higher platform boots to counter that) and he’s hers but not just hers. She knows she needs him and she needs to protect him and sometimes he’s _there_ , impossibly present in this room amidst the cobwebs.

 

_Impossible_ , she thinks, and sinks into a dream where she’s in Neverland, kissing a dark-haired woman while they weep over lost sons.

 

* * *

_She’s still a weaver’s apprentice at twenty, too clumsy and fumbling that she’s fortunate that Hilda keeps her around. But she runs errands and looks after the children and in return, she gets a place to sleep and some kind of vocation. It isn’t what most little girls dream of, but it’s as much as Emma had ever dared to hope for._

_Hilda’s big break comes when King Leopold sends for her to make a magnificent tapestry for his daughter’s birthday, large enough to cover a wall of the girl’s bedroom. They travel to the castle to size the tapestry and Emma measures while Hilda barks out orders and the little princess and her lady-in-waiting watch them from the bed._

_The princess loses interest and wanders off after a while but her lady-in-waiting remains, eyes flickering to Emma’s bare arms a few times too many for it to be coincidence. And Emma may be finding opportunity to flex them a bit more than necessary, too, to be fair._

_Hilda has Emma clean up their supplies while she’s escorted to the king’s chamberlain, and Emma does so hastily before she turns back to the lady-in-waiting, still half-reclining on the bed. “You are lovely,” she says in greeting._

_The other girl smiles inscrutably and crooks her finger, beckoning her closer, and Emma climbs onto the bed, brushing back the girl’s hair to cup her cheek. She leans in to kiss her, long and languidly, and the girl pulls her closer until they’re tangled around each other, exploring each other with a ferocity that makes Emma crave more, more, more of this girl forever._

_A month later, Hilda and Emma return to the king to present the tapestry, and his queen sits silently beside Snow White, the faintest curve of a smile on her face as Emma gapes at her in realization._

* * *

She untangles herself from the cobwebs one day and is hit by another wave of nausea, a constant reminder that the spider is hovering when she sleeps, and Emma staggers free from it and to the little corner of the room where there’s a designated seat for waste (at the bottom of it is a roiling black pit that swallows everything that goes into it, and she’d once tried to incapacitate the spider and throw it in but fallen to dreams before she could).

 

She vomits into it and vomits again at the taste in her mouth, craving water and anything that might feed her beyond these silky strands of nightmares, and her eyes alight on the window for a moment.

 

It’s covered in cobwebs, of course, but beyond them she can see white flakes fluttering down past the castle, an early snow in the northlands.

 

_No. Not early._ She can see the white all around the castle when she leans closer, careful as she does not to touch the webs and be trapped in them. The typically snowcapped mountains are higher than before, the ground around them white with layers and layers of snow. It’s the middle of winter already.

 

She pulls her dirty cloak more tightly around her and frowns. It’s winter, and she’d left for the castle at the end of summer, just as the leaves had begun to fall from the trees. (Or had she never left? Is this a dream? Had she run off with Regina and conceded Snow and this is the false life?) It’s been months.

 

And she hasn’t seen blood in months, either.

 

She vomits again even though there’s nothing to throw up, gags into the toilet and gags and cries and gags at the terrible, hopeless suspicion that follows.

 

* * *

_Leopold’s former queen has demanded the destruction of the Merry Men after one too many attacks on the land, and Emma leads her men in a defiant strike on her castle. They break in and raid the palace of its finery, steal everything that isn’t nailed to the ground (and some that is) and Emma is the last to leave when she’s lifted into the air by a gust of magic._

_“Swan Hood,” the queen purrs, and Emma shakes with terror and the most embarrassing desire._

* * *

She curls around herself when she sleeps now, knees up over her belly and her cloak tight around her whole body. She’s afraid of…of the spider. Of the Dark One coming and seeing this new precious change in her. Of him somehow _knowing_ that it’s Neal who…that this is his…

 

It’s getting easier to differentiate between dreams and reality to stave off the madness. Her body and her emotions are different when she’s awake, more authentic, the pain and the emotions less muted than they are in slumber. _At what cost do I keep my sanity?_ she wonders, but dares not conclude the answer.

 

* * *

_“Another banner year,” Emma murmurs as she blows out the candle on her cupcake, and the doorbell rings._

_She opens the door and a little boy- a boy with familiar features, she thinks at once, and then forcefully shoves that thought aside- says, “Are you Emma Swan?”_

* * *

She’s sobbing when she wakes up, the sensation of loss overpowering, and she clings to the last vision of him, ten years old and smug and confident and _free_ , unafraid of the world or the Dark One who lives in this castle and trades in the children of desperate parents. _Henry. Henry, Henry, Henry._ Even in her dreams he’s everything, when he’s hers and when he’s Regina’s and when he belongs to both of them.

 

Her dreams are illusions and as the days change- the sky growing lighter for more time, the snow becoming more sparse- she loses herself to them, to a world where she can deny what’s happening to her now and hold onto even the grimmest fantasies instead.

 

* * *

_She’s six years old and hungry and she’s crouched on the floor with James as her father looms over her, bleary-eyed and angry. “You complain? You? Do you have any idea what we lost to keep you three? Because your goddamned mother begged me to turn down that–“ He raises his glass and downs it._

_James mutters, “I wish you hadn’t kept us,” and Father flies into a rage, grabs James by the scruff of his shirt and backs him against the wall and then there’s screaming, Emma’s screaming and David’s screaming and Mother is shouting, “No, no, no,” and James is silent with every blow and David and Emma don’t think, just leap onto Father as one._

* * *

_Emma begins work as a stablehand when she’s fifteen, and David warns her about the rumors surrounding the estate she’d been hired at but she stubbornly continues there anyway. It’s good money and the farm isn’t doing well, and the princess she’s supposed to be teaching to ride is the most beautiful she’s ever seen._

_She’s stubborn and snippy but she’s also kind, sneaking into the stables with treats for the horses and smiles for Emma that make the world feel like it’s tilting on its axis, and Emma blushes a lot and Princess Regina kisses her on the cheek once and blushes just as hard._

_They kiss for real for the first time under Regina’s apple tree, hands linked and love glowing in their eyes. Three months later, Regina’s mother sticks her hand into Emma’s chest and squeezes her heart to dust._

* * *

The Dark One appears in her room from time to time, staring at her as though she’s a puzzle he can’t solve, and she’s so afraid, more afraid of him and what he sees than of whatever new dream comes to her. Her cloak is her only protection and she uses it, wraps it tightly and freely allows the spider to encase her in a cocoon that can hide the truth from him.

 

When he leaves, Emma throws herself at the webbed walls of the room, claws at them and bites at them and struggles desperately to free herself from the horrifying reality of what will come when the Dark One figures out what she’s hiding. She fights and fights to break free until she’s bruised on the floor, webs twining all the more tightly around her until there are marks at her neck and her wrists and her ankles from the constricting cables that hold her.

 

She can’t remain here, can’t doom them to this ending, and she cries out for Regina in her mind.

 

It’s still Regina she trusts most with her safety, even if she remembers months (years?) of resentment and horror before she’d been locked up here. She never doubts for an instant that Regina would give all of herself to protect them, if she’d known they’re here. Regina is…despicable, she _must_ be despicable…

 

But she’s strong and she loves hard and _oh_ , Emma’s found a reason now…not to forgive. Not to forget. But to be selfish, to compromise values she’d refused to before new awareness had thrown a wrench into that reasoning. _Regina, Regina, Regina_ , she thinks in a litany of miserable need. _Regina, please. Regina!_

For a guilty moment, she tries to fill her mind with memories of dead men and cowering villages and Snow White’s fresh-faced naiveté stripped from her, but all she can think of is a tiny innocent who must be saved, and every atrocity seems to pale in comparison to frantic, aching terror.

* * *

_She’s been in this town for what feels like forever and she can’t remember life before it, but she has Henry and she’s the town sheriff and it’s all pretty good, even if she did wake up this morning temporarily confused at her surroundings. Huh._

_She pushes Henry in his stroller into Granny’s in the morning, and sees the mayor watching the door, eyes brightening when she catches sight of her. “Emma,” she breathes, and she’s looking at her as though she can’t believe that she’s here. “There you are.”_

_“Here I am,” she echoes, biting her lip. They’ve been less than pleasant since the divorce, more likely to bring each other to utter fury than to play nice, but there’s something about the way that Regina drops to her knees in an instant to press kisses to Henry’s cheeks that makes her heart wrench all over again._

_It jumps to her throat when Regina rises, eyes still bright with wonder as she gazes at Emma again. “I’ve missed you both so much,” she murmurs._

_“You just saw us….yesterday?” Emma finishes uncertainly. The days bleed together and even remembering anything about the past is a struggle. “Look, if you want more time with Henry, we can talk about it again. I just don’t think that it’s a good idea to keep moving him around. He needs a stable schedule.”_

_“Of course.” Regina undoes the stroller buckle and Henry jumps into her arms, giggling when she bumps her nose against his. “We have all the time in the world to work through that.”_

_She leads the way to a booth, Henry wrapped in her arms, and Emma can’t seem to remember why that divorce had seemed like such a good idea._

* * *

_Neal is adamant that Tamara is the love of his life, and Emma’s quietly wistful around both of them now. She had expected him to fall in love eventually, Tamara is as close to perfect as it gets and Emma had harbored a quiet crush of her own, but it feels a little like the end of an era for their family now that Neal is going to build a family of his own._

_And then one day they walk into their apartment, Henry pushing the door open as Emma follows him in, and there’s a strange woman seated on the couch. “What the hell are you doing here?” Emma demands, reaching for her gun._

_Behind her, Neal takes in a sharp breath. “Em, we need to go._ Now _.”_

_It’s only then that she sees, standing across the room, a man who is unmistakably the Dark One, eyes beseeching as he leans toward Neal. “Bae–“ he begins._

_“_ Now _,” Neal repeats, but his eyes are flickering from the Dark One to the woman and he takes a step forward._

_And then bolts, dragging Henry with him, and Emma reacts as quickly as she can, firing a warning shot at the woman- who dodges it swiftly, rolling to the floor and standing again, reaching toward the door with a hook in place of her left hand._

_There’s a scuffle and Emma’s knocked unconscious and the next thing she knows, she’s been reduced to prisoner, bound and gagged on a pirate ship as bait for Neal. The only thing the Dark One and the pirate queen who seems to loathe him can agree on is bringing Neal to a town they call Storybrooke._

_They’re greeted at the docks by a woman Emma only faintly recognizes as Cora, the stuff of nightmares- and her daughter, who keeps her face very even as she offers to hold Emma hostage in her home while they wait for Neal to take the bait._

_Emma reaches for her_ and touches air instead, a web restraining her.

* * *

She awakens from another delusion- she’d been with Snow in this one, two princesses from neighboring kingdoms who’d grown close as sisters- at the sound of a gasp. Instinctively, she draws her cloak around her, pulling up her knees as she sits and glowers in the general area of the door.

 

There’s a girl on the other side of the cobwebs, eyes wide as she gapes at Emma, and for a moment Emma thinks she’s still dreaming. Her hand moves downward under her cloak to rest on her abdomen, and no, this is real. “Help me,” she croaks.

 

The face vanishes and Emma sags, the burst of sudden hope deflating. She closes her eyes, inviting another dream as she shifts on the floor, and then there’s the sound of footsteps again and–

 

The girl is back, slashing at the web with a knife, and the spider clicks with disapproval as it moves to protect its web. “Hurry!” the girl whispers urgently, and Emma tries to stand and discovers that her legs are too weak, she’s too unbalanced and has been lying still for too long. The web begins to close up again, wrapping around the girl’s hand. “I can’t hold it for much longer!”

 

The girl is beginning to look panicked and Emma crawls forward, cloak hanging down around her, and she sees the opening the girl had left for her beginning to close up. She throws herself forward, counting on the force of her fall to break new, thin lines, and the web closes again just behind her.

 

“What are you doing here?” the girl hisses. Her eyes flicker down to Emma’s stomach and Emma wraps her cloak around it self-consciously. “My god, how long have you been here?”

 

“A long time,” Emma manages, slumping against the wall of the corridor. “Since before…since just after I…this didn’t happen here.” Relief crosses the girl’s face for an instant and she breathes, assessing the situation again with panicky eyes.

 

She tugs at Emma’s arms, yanking her up with clumsy gentleness. “You have to get out of here now. Rumple might be back any minute.”

 

“Rum…The Dark One!” Emma sits up, adrenaline coursing through her system as the name brings her back to life. “I’m out of… this is…this is real?”

 

“How long _were_ you in there?” the girl breathes again. “I’m not even meant to go onto this level but I heard your voice and came to investigate–“ She shakes her head, reaching out an arm to help her move. “It doesn’t matter. You need to run.”

 

“The front hall.” Emma struggles to think through a haze. “There are… armor guards…”

 

“I’ll distract them. You go!”

 

The girl is pulling her forward now and Emma focuses on not falling down the stairs, one after another after another as they make their way to the exit. She doesn’t know why the Dark One has a girl wandering his castle like she belongs there or why this girl is brave- _stupid_ \- enough to be helping her, but she doesn’t dare ask, her thoughts only on the precious bundle she’s carrying.

 

They make it all the way to the door when there’s a voice from behind them in the hall, “And what have we here, Belle?” It’s the Dark One, eyes glittering with fury, and Emma staggers for the door as the girl charges in the opposite direction, grabbing at the Dark One and shouting at him as he snarls back and Emma knows she’s going to die. No one defies the Dark One like that.

 

Emma sucks in a breath and turns around, preparing for a battle they’ll both lose, and then hesitates.

 

Because the Dark One is hesitating, too, eyes on the girl for a moment as she speaks urgently to him, and Emma realizes at once that he won’t hurt her. He might not even hurt _Emma_ , not if she moves quickly, not while the girl is begging him to wait and willing to risk his favor for her sake.

 

She runs hopelessly, her feet like jelly and her lungs burning, heading toward the castle stables in the hopes of finding some transportation, meager as it might be–

 

And there’s Beetle, who’d found his way from the mountains into a new home. It’s been two seasons and he still remains hers, safe and well fed and ever faithful. He nickers at the sight of her and trots forward, nuzzling her matted hair as she sobs into his mane, hanging onto it and feeling more fragile than she ever has before.

 

* * *

It’s more difficult to ride now that she’s so out of shape and her body has changed so much, but she drives herself as far as she can until she has to stop for Beetle’s sake, settling down next to a lake where she can wash herself and her clothing and take stock of where she can go now.

 

She’s fleeing the Dark One, hiding something precious from him he can never be allowed to take from her. There’s only one place she can go, one place safe from the most powerful being in this realm, when even his letting her escape now means it’s only a matter of time before he reclaims her again. There’s only one option. _To be selfish_.

 

Emma trusts her with her life, and with _his_ , and disgust (dulled, after so much time away from it all) takes a back seat to fear at last.

 

Emma needs her.

 

She laughs and weeps at once at the unfairness of it. If she’d just taken Regina’s offer before all this, she’d have never suffered through the past six months, never been trapped and scared to death and reliving a thousand endings- _most with Regina, always with Regina-_ again and again. And she still _can’t_ take it, can’t accept the world Regina wants to live in, loves her and hates her all at once.

 

But she has more to worry about than just herself this time, more to consider beyond the people she’s been protecting until now. And she knows instinctively that she’s found something that matters to her more than everyone else in the realm and her own firm beliefs of good and evil.

 

She rides on when Beetle wakes up again. She doesn’t sleep, can’t sleep until they’re safe, and she makes it to Regina’s castle with her head on fire and her body protesting and it takes superhuman strength to stable Beetle and sneak her way into the castle.

 

She lasts until Regina’s bed, crawls into it and covers herself with the blankets, and only then does she finally succumb to exhaustion.

 

* * *

She wakes up to a strangled voice saying her name ( _I thought you were dead_ ) and huddles deeper under the covers for a moment before Regina repeats it, her voice thick with emotion. “Emma?”

 

Emma stretches like a cat, arching her back under the comforter and feeling her joints complain at the way they’d been treated today and for the past six months, and then she sits up, letting the covers drop around her. “I need your help,” she whispers, and Regina’s eyes fall to her swollen stomach, full with child.

 

Regina’s face shifts from emotion to emotion, fury and relief and jealousy and longing and confusion and then, at last, simple acceptance. Of course. Of course. “Of course,” Regina murmurs.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had a nasty bout of the flu this week so I haven't been able to get to comments at all yet (thankfully, this chapter was mostly done before I got sick), but I appreciate them all (and you all!!) so much and will reply as soon as I can! <3 
> 
> There are no canon flashbacks that match up to this period, but we're a few months before 7:15 AM/most of the S1 Snowing flashbacks. There's reference in this chapter to abortions/Leopold/Cora if you squint. But it's actually pretty fluffy, I promise~ Enjoy! :)

“Are you sure she can be trusted?” Emma casts a sidelong glance at the midwife Regina had summoned. She’s on her newly designated bed, Regina hovering over her, and Kalla is inspecting whatever she’d done to her body in prison and while riding here with disapproving muttering.

 

Regina doesn’t bother to quiet her voice. “Kalla came to the castle once a month when I was a young queen and made sure I never had to bear his child.” Her voice is tight and Emma reaches for her instinctively. “And never a word to the king. Yes, she can be discreet.”

 

“Oh.” Regina inspires compassion as easily as she does every other emotion, Emma’s heart clenching up at the image of it, Regina only a girl and terrified of carrying Leopold’s spawn. “ _Oh_ ,” she says again, the second question registering behind the first. “I…no. I don’t want to…end this.”

 

Regina nods, unsurprised. “You’ve always wanted a family.” She falls silent again, as she’d been when she’d had a maid draw Emma a bath and when she’d guided her back and forth through the rooms of her chambers, settling her in a side bedroom just beside hers. When she holds Emma now, it’s with a solicitous hand at her elbow, as distant as she is close.

 

“What’s wrong?” Emma murmurs, leaning back as Kalla rubs her thumbs in painful circles against her ankles. “If this is something you don’t want to–“

 

“Emma.” Regina’s voice is equally exasperated and affectionate. Oh god, she’s missed that voice. She hesitates, taking a seat beside the bed. “I thought you’d been killed that night after Midas’s party. I captured one of your men and demanded your whereabouts and he said you’d never returned. My guards insisted that they hadn’t struck you down. But you’d just…disappeared.”

 

“I broke into the Dark One’s castle again. He didn’t like it.” She tries to smile but it’s too exhausting to fake right now, and instead she closes her eyes and hears Regina’s sharp intake of breath.

 

“You’re running from _him_?”

 

“His…maid, I guess? She found me. Let me go. I think he’s a little sweet on her.”

 

Regina raises a dubious eyebrow. Emma laughs, hoarse like sick dog’s bark, and tries to ignore the calculating look in Regina’s eye as she considers this new information. “And then I came here. I was so…so afraid…” She swallows.

 

Regina says, “Where is the father?”

 

“Gone.” She can’t imagine she’ll ever see Neal again. Whatever her dreams had been, they’d all relied on them both in a world beyond her. “If the Dark One knew who he was, though…” She can’t tell Regina the circumstances, but she cradles her stomach for a moment and Regina smoothes hair from her face and kisses her brow.

 

“The Dark One will never touch your baby,” she promises. Her eyes are so dark with fierce protectiveness that it takes Emma’s breath away, and she reaches for her hand and squeezes it tightly.

 

* * *

The first night is dreadful. Emma closes her eyes and sees a spider and her blankets grow heavy like the webbing that had held her down, and she thrashes with silent screams and can’t sleep at all. She’s battling subconscious terror of falling back into a world that had never existed, of waking up and this whole day of freedom being a lie, and she sweats and cries silently until she finally gives up.

 

She tiptoes into Regina’s room- _the Evil Queen, she’s sneaking into the scourge of the kingdom’s bedroom_ , she thinks for a moment, and wants to laugh and cry again with all the unsteady emotions that come with bearing a child- and Regina regards her with open eyes and a turned-down corner of her blanket.

 

Emma slides into the bed and Regina wraps her arms around her, a hand running along her arms and waist until it finally settles on her stomach and Emma closes her eyes, finally at peace.

 

In the quiet room, Regina’s arms surrounding her, the reckless panic is fading and she dares to whisper, “I still can’t accept your offer, Regina.”

 

“That offer was a mistake.” Regina winds her fingers through Emma’s, relaxing them again on the bump of her stomach. “I know that now.”

 

There’s strangeness to her voice, carefully modulated in ways that make Emma’s blood run cold with dread, and Emma twists around to face her, their hands still locked together. “What do you mean?”

 

Regina doesn’t meet her eyes. “I took stock of…many matters while I thought you were dead.”

 

The last time Regina had lost a loved one, she’d thrown herself into a magical resurrection that had led to Emma’s heart being yanked out and the dissolution of their relationship. Emma can’t imagine what a Regina already this far gone would have decided. “Tell me.”

 

Regina’s response is as plain as the cadence it emerges in. “You were right,” she says simply. “I _am_ beyond return. Who I am now is who I’ll always be. And I won’t burden you with that.”  

 

“Regina…” She’d used Regina as a platform for her fears about her, had given her the worst of who she is and lashed out at her and hoped, irrationally, secretly _hoped,_ that it would have somehow flicked a switch within Regina. That she’d…change, somehow, jolt her back to the Regina she’d once been, and she’d pushed away those insidious dreams as quickly as they’d come.

 

Regina, meanwhile, had taken them as an easy truth to resign to. And now that she’s resigned to that darkness… “What are you planning?” Emma whispers.

 

Regina cups her free hand to Emma’s cheek and Emma trembles, the fear even more acute than before as Regina smiles. “Nothing you need to concern yourself with. Sleep, Emma.”

 

Her words are charged by magic, hitting Emma with a new wave of exhaustion. Her eyes drift shut again, but behind her eyelids she can still see Regina’s dark-eyed smile, glowing ominously.

 

* * *

They don’t speak about the nights in the morning. Emma is wary of leaving Regina’s chambers at all, of the Dark One finding her here; and she’s just tired enough (seven months along, Kalla had proclaimed, and she predicts an early birth too) to remain content there, leafing through books and getting the kingdom gossip from Regina’s maids.

 

David is due to marry the princess Abigail in just four months, and there’s no news at all about Snow. Which is probably a good thing in Regina’s castle. Regina has been absorbed in enriching the kingdom, and her subjects have been absorbed in loathing her. The Merry Men have been only minutely active, from the sound of things, and there’s a rumor that they’ve moved eastward and gotten involved in politics. Emma listens and tamps down her longing and politely ignores the searching looks she gets when they discuss the Merry Men, the inquisitive _but aren’t you…?_ that she refuses to confirm. She has a responsibility to them, but they can’t come first right now. Not anymore.

 

Still, though, she misses the forest, misses riding through hungry towns and _helping_ , saving people who need it and thumbing her nose in the direction of the royalty who would neglect them. The castle feels like another life now, a world outside of the one Emma’s lived in since she was fourteen.

 

Regina is…different now, and not different at all. She dotes on Emma- _you’re smothering me_ , Emma complains when Regina starts dictating her diet, and she gets a quelling glare and a double helping of a suspiciously greenish heap of mashed potatoes for it- and she finds every excuse to return to her during the day. She’s clothed as the Evil Queen that Emma had finally begun to recognize but now Emma sees so little of _her_ that it’s growing easier to forget her again. This Regina is frustratingly domineering and quietly affectionate and focuses on Emma’s health and safety with single-minded determination. At the same time, Emma trusts her and fears the moment she breaks that trust.

 

But weeks pass and she doesn’t.

 

She’s a curiosity in the castle for Regina’s few trusted servants who’ve seen her, an impossible fixture in the Evil Queen’s most private chambers, but they’ve learned discretion (with the alacrity that only someone who’d witnessed executions over indiscretions would, Emma reminds herself, and tiredly decides that she’ll care about it more when it comes up). When she’s alone sometimes, she ventures out onto the balcony to combat antsiness and wonders about her men, about the woman she’d been protecting, about seven months gone and Emma presumed dead.

 

She wonders about the boy she carries, too. She can still recall sparkling brown eyes and arms around her and Regina and _Henry, Henry_ , a thousand lifetimes and he’s always Henry, but she stubbornly refuses to concede anything about her visions to reality. She doesn’t have to name him Henry just because her captor had given her that future. What kind of a name is Henry, anyway? It sounds like an appellation for a prince, not a future thief with a bow over his shoulder and a hand outstretched to the needy.

 

But of course, he _will_ be a prince as much as he’s an outlaw. She whispers it to Regina one night, late in her first month at the castle. “I don’t know what I’m going to do, Regina. I never had a mother. I don’t know how to be a mother. I don’t even know if I can be…” She shivers and Regina is very silent beside her. “I didn’t just come here to hide. I thought you could…help.”

 

Regina breathes in slowly, breathes out again. “You want to raise your child here.” There’s an unmistakable longing in her voice and Emma opens her eyes to meet Regina’s pained eyes. Of course Regina would want a child, far more than Emma had ever considered herself. Regina has always been overflowing with love and always short of enough people to bequeath it to.

 

“I want…I want the baby to have its best chance. With us. With you, if you want.” She peeks up at Regina again, sees guarded wonder in her eyes. “I don’t know how good I’d be at– and, I mean, you _are_ prone to murder when faced with people more stubborn than you, and who knows how stubborn the baby will–“ Regina’s eyes narrow and Emma touches her hand, waiting until the glare softens. “But maybe together? We could do this together.” The wonder returns.

 

“And he’d be here. With me.” She sounds like she doesn’t quite believe it, as though she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop.

 

“It’s...safer here, right?” It sounds like a flimsy excuse even to her ears, though she _does_ mean it. The baby needs to be kept here under Regina’s watchful eye, and the vision of the three of them as a family- fractured, argumentative, impossible, but a family regardless- scratches its way into her heart and takes root.

 

Regina doesn’t comment on the question, pouncing instead on Emma’s offhand mention. “He?”

 

“I’m pretty sure it’s a boy,” Emma says, wincing at the slip. “I don’t…I saw things in the Dark One’s prison.”

 

“The future.” Regina’s brow furrows.

 

“Lots of futures. Chances we’ve– _I’ve_ missed.” Regina doesn’t miss the hasty correction, but her eyes are focused on Emma as Emma squirms. “I saw a boy- here, in another realm…” Regina’s eyes brighten at that admission, back to the promise of _something bad_ , and Emma swallows. “But none of that was real. It could have all been some kind of elaborate trick on his part.”

 

_That_ seems to trouble Regina. “Maybe so.” She closes her eyes, the conversation over.

 

* * *

But starting the very next day, a suspicious amount of paraphernalia finds its way into the bedroom Emma doesn’t use. There’s a table for changing, an elaborate dresser that no infant would ever need packed with more clothing than Emma’s seen in her life, and then- one day- a crib set up in the center of the room, a mobile above it with blue and white unicorns twinkling in the moonlight coming in from the balcony. “I’ll have that closed off as soon as he’s old enough to crawl,” Regina says hastily. “I just thought…I thought you’d want him to see the forest.”

 

“And these are Rocinante and Beetle watching over him?” Emma moves to finger one of the dark unicorns, to imagine the tiny baby she’s seen in her dreams staring wide-eyed up at the horselike creatures. She pictures them for a moment, frozen in the beauty of the two of them captured together, Regina and H– and the baby with his hand wrapped around her finger as he coos at the mobile.

 

_This future is impossible_ , she reminds herself, and recalls Regina’s words from her first night here again and again until they begin to lose all meaning. Because in this tiny, secret place, maybe they have that future. Outside this room they are fury and tyranny and outlaw, outside this room they’re battling on opposite sides of a schism.

 

In this room, they could be mothers.

 

“You’re crying.” Regina wipes at her tears with her thumb. “I so rarely saw you weep before.”

 

“Now I do it all the time.” Emma laughs with a sob. “Kalla says it’s normal for women with child. I’m sorry I’ve become like this.”

 

“I like you like this.” Emma looks at her askance. Regina shakes her head. “Not…not like _this_. But you always felt so unguarded when you allowed yourself to weep.”

 

And this, Emma knows too well. “So did you,” she whispers, and their hands are still together, tight in their bubble away from the world, and it’s never felt more right to turn and lean in for a moment, watch Regina’s eyes flicker closed with resignation…

 

Her stomach bumps against Regina’s side and Regina jumps back, a purple light glowing in her hand for a moment before she realizes what had attacked her and tries to hold back a smirk. “Ah.” Emma glares hard at her. Regina manages to get her features back under control and looks back, stone-faced.

 

“Right.” Emma removes her hand carefully, steeling herself again. “I’m…after the baby is born, I’m not going to be able to stay here. Not always. I need to…I have another life out there.”

 

Regina nods, eyebrows raised. “Hence the view of the forest. So he can always see you coming.” She reaches for Emma again and thinks twice of it, curling her fingers into a loose fist and uncurling them at her side. “I know this isn’t the life you want.”

 

“And around him…you’re going to keep the Evil Queen thing away from him, aren’t you? No fireballs in the nursery.”

 

“Of course not.” Regina looks irritated at the question. “I’m not going to subject our son to any of that. If you don’t trust me with–“ She stops abruptly, eyes rounding with alarm at the slip. _Our son._

 

Emma echoes her. “Our son.” She shifts forward before she can lose her nerve and the brief lowering of her guard, kissing Regina softly on the corner of her mouth. _Safe. No promises broken_. “Thank you, Regina.”

 

Regina is caught somewhere between outraged and mollified, mouth opening and closing again before she mutters a reluctant, “Yes, well,” and returns to the crib, hands settling on the side of it.

 

* * *

It’s only a few days later when Emma wakes up in the middle of the night to an empty bed.

 

It isn’t the first time it’s happened. Regina is prone to pacing the nursery at nights sometimes, warring with herself in a silent battle that Emma isn’t privy to. She knows it must be related to whatever decision Regina had made while she was gone. But she’s too tired to fight anymore, to plead for their future with someone who doesn’t want to fight with her.

 

The baby does the fighting for her now, straining Regina in ways she won’t confess to but remain regardless. Regina spends more time in her chambers with Emma now, more time adding more and more to the nursery that the child has no need for (Regina is already speaking about choosing one of the foals that are due soon as his personal horse, and Emma rolls her eyes but thinks of her own childhood on the streets and is oddly grateful for a queen who’d spoil him). Regina seems as caught up in domesticity as she’s ever been, and Emma loves it and hates the promise of it at once.

 

And Regina loves it enough to be torn.

 

Tonight, though, there’s another voice in her chambers, a low rumble that sounds like a man- and then pitched higher, too high to be anyone but…

 

Emma’s forehead creases and she finds a knife and slips along the back corridor that circles the main rooms of Regina’s chambers, eyes glued to a crack in the wall.

 

The Dark One is standing at one end of the room, Regina adorned in regal attire at the other end, protective in front of the sealed doors of the nursery. “We had a deal, Rumple.”

 

For a moment, Emma _doubts_ , fears and hates Regina with all her might for betraying them like this, and then Regina continues, “I’ve funded George’s kingdom for this wedding so Abigail doesn’t know the sham she’s marrying into. You owe me your end of the bargain,” and Emma feels ashamed and silly for second-guessing Regina’s motives.

 

“Very well!” The Dark One waves his hands in a little wiggle and red smoke appears around Regina’s hands. It dissipates and there’s a scroll in its place, tiny and as ominous as the look in Regina’s eyes as she opens it.

 

And then she falters. The Dark One’s eyes narrow. Regina reads, voice trembling, “The thing you love most.”

 

The Dark One waves his hands again and the scroll is in his hands. Regina jerks forward. “Wait! We had a deal!”

 

“The deal is for naught,” the Dark One snaps. “You’re never going to use it.”

 

“What?” But Emma can see the hesitation in Regina’s eyes, the same indecision in her eyes that appears every time she catches her in the nursery. “You don’t know that!”

 

The Dark One closes his hands around the scroll, eyes ugly and unpleasant, and they flicker once to Emma’s position in the wall as though he knows she’s there. “You’re already looking for loopholes. Aren’t you?” he demands, his voice rough with danger.

 

Regina shakes her head, panicked but as always, so very dignified about it. “Of course not. I have a…a childhood horse I love dearly…”

 

The Dark One sighs with arrogant exasperation. “Foolish girl.”

 

Regina jerks again, more violently than before. “Don’t call me that,” she hisses, hands clenched and shaking.

 

“This requires sacrifice. _True_ sacrifice. And it’s wasted on you.” He turns, fleet-footed as Regina charges forward, and makes his way into the nursery. Emma is out of the hall, heart racing, and emerges just in time to see the door light up in flames when the Dark One approaches it.

 

“Stay away from them,” Regina says fiercely. “If you’ve never wanted to test my abilities against yours, stay away from them. I know your weakness.”

 

“Dear Regina,” the Dark One croons, turning to face her. “I have no weakness.”

 

“You have one.” Regina sounds so certain about it that the Dark One blinks and cocks his head to regard her.

 

And Emma doesn’t know what Regina means but she has secret knowledge of her own of the Dark One. “You have two,” she says, and she thinks hard of Baelfire, of a son who flees from his father with so much terror that the Dark One must still be pursuing him now. She says nothing more, but the Dark One scoffs and looks warily at them both before vanishing from the room.

 

“Two?” Regina says, and Emma shrugs in response and asks instead, “True sacrifice?”

 

“It doesn’t matter.”

 

“The thing you love most?”

 

_“It doesn’t matter_ ,” Regina nearly growls, and stalks into the nursery, eyes dark as she stares down at the crib.

 

* * *

She starts sleeping with a repurposed bow under her pillow and Regina just sighs and has a shelf built because “If we’re not careful, you’ll take off both our heads in our sleep.” She avoids discussion of the Dark One and the scroll and broods more and more as the days pass and the baby’s birth grows closer.

 

Emma has pains often now, her body cramping up so often that Regina summons Kalla to stay at the castle and inspect her daily. “The baby is moving down into the birth canal,” Kalla announces, spreading a salve across the battered area of Emma’s stomach meant to calm the baby. “It won’t be long now.”

 

“Good,” Emma grumbles, leaning into Regina’s solicitous embrace. “I’m done. Let’s do this. I want _out_.” With late pregnancy comes a rash of new itchiness to move, to do everything from tidying all of Regina’s belongings (She’d stolen a pair of diamond earrings out of habit and slipped them to Kalla for her family back in town) to rappelling down the wall (She doesn’t, but she spends too long looking mournfully down that Regina gives her a dark look and threatens her if she endangers their son’s life).

 

The baby kicks in vigorous agreement and Regina presses her hand to Emma’s stomach firmly. “Patience,” she orders in her most queenly voice, and Kalla looks on with amusement. Abruptly, the baby stops moving, soothed by the tone. Regina sits back, pleased. “At least _someone_ in this family listens to me.”

 

“Hey! I didn’t go riding yesterday!” She’d tried to sneak downstairs in a fit of pique at being cooped up and Kalla had been summoned by one of the maids. And Kalla’s less easily softened by Emma’s best hangdog expressions, which is why she’s been consigned to bed for the duration of the pregnancy.

 

“Convincing.” Regina kisses the top of her head, light and affectionate, and Emma struggles very hard to scowl about it. “I’ll be back in a bit. The castle is alive with rumors of why I’ve sequestered myself here. I must make more public appearances.”

 

“Someday the baby’s going to have to leave these chambers,” Emma says, somber at the thought of it. With each passing day, his fragility haunts her, the danger he’s in- as Neal’s son, yes, but as Regina’s as well- as terrifying as the very concept of childbirth. When he emerges into the world, he’s going to be tiny and unguarded and she won’t be able to protect him all the time anymore.

 

Regina strokes her hair back, pulling up the heavy blankets to cover her.  There are so many on the bed at this point that Emma can’t even see the bump of her abdomen under them, and she’d protest except for that secret part of her that doesn’t mind being coddled at all when it’s Regina doing the coddling. “We’ll worry about that when that day comes.”

 

She leaves the room, followed by Kalla, and Emma sinks into the bed and leafs through a book Regina had left behind for her. She’s trapped in this odd limbo in pregnancy where she wants to be wrapped in blankets and sleeping, but she also wants to be swinging a sword down where the knights are fencing outside. She’s anxious and irritated and worn out, and her brain is getting progressively fuzzier with each passing day.

 

She closes her eyes just as something moves at the edge of her peripheral vision. _Wait. What?_ She opens them again, sitting up and nocking her bow–

 

And then she lowers it, jaw dropping as she makes out the figure climbing over the balcony. “ _Snow_?”

 

“Emma!” Snow rushes forward toward her, and Emma almost rises before she remembers Regina’s dull admissions and scathing insults. _He’s as terrible at keeping secrets as Snow White_ , she’d said once of the palace physician, and Emma instead gathers the blankets around her, careful to hide her body from Snow. “I thought you were dead! Then Johanna- I got word that Regina was holding you captive–“

 

Emma finds her voice. “Have you lost your mind? Do you know what Regina would do to you if she finds you here?”

 

Snow ignores her. “And you…” She blinks, looks around at the empty room, and Emma armed and seated comfortably on Regina’s bed. “You don’t…look like a captive.” Her eyes settle back on Emma, head rocking back and forth uncertainly. “She must have you under an enchantment. You wouldn’t have…”

 

“It’s…” Emma tugs the blankets closer to her. “It’s complicated.”

 

She can see dawning suspicion on Snow’s face, the struggle between her desire to see the best in everyone locked with the awareness that Emma must be there of her own free will. “Come with me.” Snow says it like a plea. “I can get you out of here before she comes back. Whatever she’s done to keep you here, it isn’t worth it.”

 

“It really, really is.”

 

“ _Emma_.” Snow steps forward, reaching for her. “Emma, please!”

 

Emma shakes her head, Snow already looking as though her heart’s been broken. “I’m sorry I was gone,” she manages. “I was…I was locked up. Somewhere else,” she adds hastily when Snow’s eyes light up. They dim again. “Regina’s helping me. I know it makes me a shitty friend, I know she wants you dead, but I have no choice.”

 

Snow stares at her, hurt. “There’s always a choice,” she says, and she’s still naïve Snow, good, sweet Snow who’s been hunted down for years and still doesn’t understand an absence of options. “I’d take care of you. Like you took care of me. Emma, she’s evil! She’s murdered countless–“

 

Emma can feel the tears threatening to fall again- she’s _done_ being pregnant and emotional, done, done, done- and Snow sees them as they fall. “You deserve better than this future, Emma. You belong with your people. You belong with me.”

 

A low laugh sounds from just beyond the doorway and Snow jerks, fumbles for a sword and comes up blank as Regina stalks into the room. “Well, well, well.” Her eyes gleam with manic desire and Emma’s heart thuds furiously against her chest. “And to think I’ve sent out dozens and dozens of knights, burned down towns…just for Snow White to appear in my quarters.”

 

“Regina,” Emma says in a warning tone.

 

Snow retrieves her sword at last and points it at Regina. A fireball sizzles into existence in Regina’s hand. “See, Emma?” Snow grits out. “This is what you’ve allied yourself with. I know how she can be when she wants to. I _loved_ her. But it was a lie. _She’s_ a lie.”

 

Regina snickers coldly, but it’s a tiny bit too ferocious to be genuine. “Emma knows exactly who I am, better than _you_ ever have.”

 

“Then she knows you’ll take everything you’re given and grind it into dust.” Snow darts a glance at Emma before returning to Regina. “She’ll take everything you love from you, Em–“

 

“ _I’ll_ take everything _you_ love?” Regina echoes disbelievingly.

 

Snow ignores her, sword still pointed at her but her words begging Emma alone. “It’s what she does. All she knows is destruction.”

 

Regina is rooted to her spot, fury and hatred and despair mingling on her face, and Emma hesitates. Thinks of the Dark One in the next room and _the thing you love most_ and _you’re already looking for loopholes_ and she knows Regina, doesn’t she? She knows Snow isn’t wrong.

 

_This time is different_ , she thinks. _It’s never different,_ she thinks.

 

“If you’re truly not a captive, she’ll let you go,” Snow says, and now she’s searching Regina’s face, her brow creasing as she finds…something. Regina recoils, lip curling with displeasure. Snow lowers her sword. “We’ll save this feud for another day, won’t we?”

 

Regina’s jaw is tight as she glares at Snow and then turns, the fireball flaring up and then fading into nothingness in her hand. “Emma,” she says grudgingly. “If this is what you want.” The reluctance in her face is as mesmerizing as the shock on Snow’s, and Emma believes again.

 

Regina has given an inch. With Snow White in the room and a baby on the way, Regina has finally…

 

She blinks back more tears (for fuck’s sake, _really_?) and leans forward, the baby kicking a beat against her skin. “Snow,” she says, and Regina’s face turns thunderous, her graciousness only going so far. Her hands clasp together, fingers wrapped around one fist as though she can’t trust herself with them right now. Snow’s eyes shine with renewed hope. “Snow, please run,” she murmurs, and Regina lets out a breath.

 

Snow’s hands droop. “Emma, you can’t possibly–“

 

“Oh, enough of your blathering,” Regina snarls, the fireball returning with Emma’s choice made. She pulls her hand back and Emma aims her bow and fires the shot she’d known she’d have to take, striking Regina in the elbow as Snow scampers for freedom. Regina lets out an undignified curse.

 

“Saving the feud for another day,” Emma reminds her, head still pounding and stomach clenching and unclenching with the stress of the moment. Regina sighs, long-suffering, and staggers toward the balcony, the arrow still protruding from her elbow. Emma sits up, rolling her eyes as she clambers after her. “ _Regina_.”

 

But Regina allows herself to be steered back to the bed, sitting with a grumble as Emma tugs at the arrow. “I left that balcony unguarded for you, not _her_. She comes into my home–“

 

“–that she was born and raised in–“

 

“That she was _exiled_ from,” Regina corrects her, and Emma rolls her eyes again and finds one of Kalla’s medical kits to clean the injury. “She comes into my home and tries to steal away my family. _Mine_.” She looks at Emma with raw ferocity for a moment, uncontained and dangerous, and Emma shivers under her gaze. “She took everything from me. My love. My life. And she’d do it again.”

 

She’s getting more agitated with every thought of it, panic bright as Emma swabs at the wound, and Emma sets down the medical kit and slides a tentative arm around Regina’s waist. “I’m here, Regina. We’re both still here. And if I did go, it wouldn’t be because of Snow.” There’s only one person in the universe who can truly make her give up on Regina, and that person is still sitting rigidly in her embrace, driven by love and hatred and never, _never_ any middle ground between them.

 

Regina turns slowly, face sharp and angry and urgent still. “Emma,” she whispers.

 

Emma offers her a smile. “I mean it.”

 

Regina doesn’t return the smile. “Swear to me that you won’t take him from me. That you won’t just…change your mind one day and run off with him and _Snow White_.”

 

She says it in a snarl and Emma swallows, bites back her wariness and says, “Promise me he won’t grow up to know only hatred.”

 

Regina stares at her, disbelieving. “Do you think I would want any child of mine to become like me? Do you think I want him to suffer as I do? I have this… _unfinished business_ ,” she spits out. “I can’t rest until Snow pays for her crimes. I can’t be happy until she’s _gone_. No child will have that on his shoulders.” It’s that odd mix of terrifying and caring that Regina has mastered, and Emma’s about to comment on it when Regina finishes darkly, “I’ll destroy that girl long before he ever has to worry about her.”

 

“That’ll be a bedtime story for him.” Emma lies back on the bed, props up a finger and puts on a squeaky voice. “’Mama, whatever happened to Auntie Snow?’ ‘Oh, your other mother murdered her last harvest feast.’ Family!”

 

Regina’s eyes glitter dangerously. “Auntie. Snow.”

 

She opens her mouth to tell Regina that _yes_ , in fact, she isn’t entirely sure that whatever had been between David and Snow had played out- and had she mentioned David at all, would Regina keep his secret?- when she sees the gouge in Regina’s elbow and reality crashes back down around her.

 

Inside these castle walls it’s easy to forget that this is all painfully _real_ , that Snow could have been burned to a crisp just minutes ago. Dire threats don’t seem so dire in the haze of _new family_ and when Regina’s eyes go soft like they used to when they’d both been girls, when the world moves along outside of them and she can laugh about Regina’s vendetta instead of fearing her for it.

 

Regina would manipulate David to catch Snow, would kill him as vengeance against her. Regina would use every confession Emma bequeaths to her as a weapon for her endgame. Regina might be family inside this room but she’s still executed whole villages outside of it and Emma needs to remember that if she’s ever going to plunge back into that world.

 

She pokes at Regina with her toes in a playful nudge and puts away her bow, silently declaring the conversation over until Regina tucks the blankets back over her and calls out for Kalla in an irritable shout.

 

* * *

Regina summons the Dark One again that night, and Emma closes her eyes and struggles to make out angry murmurs.

 

She fails, and in the morning, Emma finds Regina in the nursery, head propped up to watch the crib until she’d fallen asleep.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> double length chapter! we're right up to about a week and a half before 7:15 AM's flashbacks. this is more of what i've been told is NOT fluff, lmao. enjoy! <3

The baby is born on a quiet afternoon sometime near the beginning of summer.  Emma snarls threats at Regina and Kalla and the maids attending them- _You took a knife out of your sleeve and started waving it around,_ Regina claims later, but she has no proof- and then threats at the baby that have Regina shouting threats back and all she remembers is agony, heavy and painful even through whatever it is that Kalla had given her to drink, and then a little boy in her arms, squalling and red-faced and wrinkled but hers. _Theirs_.

 

Now it’s late in the evening and the last of the maids have finished scrubbing her down, guiding her back to the cleaned bed in the guest room before Regina dismisses them, baby still balanced in her arms. Emma holds out her hands. “Gimme.”

 

“He’s a child, not the last leg of mutton,” Regina grumbles, but she climbs into the bed behind Emma. Emma shifts into her free arm and holds the baby to her, Regina’s other arm still joined with hers. “You saw his name, didn’t you?”

 

“I’m not letting the Dark One’s pet spider name my son. You do it.”

 

She gets a noncommittal “Hm,” then Regina’s arm tightening around her. “He’s beautiful.”

 

He is. He looks odd and misshapen from the birth, but somehow she’s still breathless every time she sees his face or a hand escaping from his blankets. “He looks more like you than me. Of course he’s beautiful.” 

 

“Smooth.”

 

“I mean it.” She does. He has dark hair and his eyes- blue for now, though they may change with age- already focus when he’s held close to Regina, the two of them with locked inquisitive gazes. Though maybe it’s just the emotion that bubbles up whenever she sees either of them, like love and hope and terror that it’ll all fall apart in a moment. “I love you.”

 

“You’re delirious,” Regina says affectionately.

 

“I’ve loved you since I was seventeen.” She turns to press a kiss to the corner of Regina’s jaw. Regina blinks at her with amusement. “Marry me.”

 

“What was _in_ that drink Kalla prescribed for you? Was that absinthe?”

 

Emma makes a face at the baby. “Fine. Don’t marry me. I’m still in love with you. I saw you in that carriage a decade ago and I fell in love with you.”

 

“You wanted to save me,” Regina corrects her. “Bring me out into the woods and hide me from a king.” Her fingers are twirling around the blanket where the baby has dislodged it from his feet and is kicking into her palm. It’s so _cute_. Emma really thinks they should get married. There may have been absinthe in the drink.

 

“Then you saved me from your mother, remember? And I loved you then. You had good eyes.”

 

“You have good eyes, too.” Regina lets go of the baby for a moment to cup a hand against Emma’s face. “It didn’t take long to fall in love with you.”

 

“And now we have a kid.”

 

“A nine-year love story in the making.” Regina still sounds amused. She is not conforming to the quiet romance of the moment at all. “You’ve been walking around for the past two months looking at me as though I might break your heart any minute. You’ll regret all this in the morning.”

 

Emma looks back at the baby for support. He closes his eyes and suckles at her robe until she opens it and feeds him. “Maybe not.”

 

“I don’t know why you’re so afraid that I’m going to break you.” Now Regina sounds a little sulky. “I’ve been positively stable for you and him while _you_ can’t seem to wait to get away.”

 

“I’m not the one trying to cast some terrible curse,” Emma says. Regina stiffens behind her. “Yeah, I know what that scroll was. I was in that library nine months ago, remember? And we once went through them all.”

 

Regina is silent. Emma says, “So is it the Mighty Curse? The Great Curse? The Greater Curse? The Curse of Great Indigestion? Are you trying to give Snow White heartburn?”

 

Regina runs her thumb across the baby’s soles and his toes curl up against her. “You know, I think you’ve stopped taking my Evil Queenhood seriously.”

 

Fair enough. “Maybe it’s all those baby cuddles wearing away at your image.”

 

“ _Rude_.” Regina doesn’t let up on the cuddling, though. She’s barely let the baby go since he’d been born, and she’s been making up excuses to hold onto Emma when she’s holding onto him, just to keep a warm hand supporting him. Regina is completely smitten. Emma is kind of smitten by both of them by now.

 

When he’s done feeding, she passes him to Regina agreeably. Regina holds him gingerly, eyes soft. “We should put him down for the night. The sooner he’s on a stable sleep schedule, the better. And you must be exhausted.”

 

“’Lil bit.” She slides down in the bed, watches Regina lower the baby into the crib. “You’re going to check on him?”

 

“I’m going to let him sleep.” Emma pouts at her. “Yes, I will check on him.”

 

* * *

Emma wakes up once an hour anyway, sneaking over to lay a hand on the baby and make sure that he’s still breathing. Regina is silent in those minutes but her breathing is suspiciously uneven and Emma _knows_ how Regina sleeps, so she keeps herself very still and waits until the baby next shifts.

 

Regina is out of the bed in an instant, pulling him up into her arms. “Hello, little one,” Regina clucks. “Trouble sleeping?” The baby gurgles back.

 

Emma watches them as Regina moves to the balcony, eyes fixed on the baby. She’s singing a lullaby to him, her voice low and husky and the words in a language Emma doesn’t know, and the strains of it echo within the high ceilings of the room.

 

The absinthe has mostly worn off and Emma remembers more easily now her reservations when it comes to Regina, but she still wonders if anyone could see Regina right now- loving so quickly, loving so well- and still view her as a threat. Regina dressed in a light robe, the baby with a finger on the edge of it- he still hasn’t figured out that only one of them can provide him with milk, and whines loudly when Regina won’t comply- and a blinding smile on Regina’s face as she gazes at him.

 

And then Regina coos, “We’ll all sleep better when Snow White’s head is on a pike and we can be happy,” and there’s a little more madness in her smile, a little more rigidity in how she holds the baby, and Emma understands again.

 

 _Don’t let me down_ , she begs silently, and Regina hears nothing, but she walks inside, crosses the room to stand in the doorway and say, “Rumplestiltskin!”

 

And then the Dark One is there. “Congratulations,” he’s saying, a safe distance from the room. Emma sits up to watch him. “I suppose you’re due a gift.” He waves his hand and a little pacifier appears in it, a chain with a pin shaped like an apple at the end. “So he never forgets his first mother.”

 

Regina’s eyes narrow and her grasp on the baby grows tighter. “You obnoxious little imp, tell me what the loophole is.”

 

“You ask for a loophole while you hold the thing you love most.” The Dark One titters. “Let it never be said that Her Majesty lacks nerve.”

 

“You wrote the curse. You never leave yourself without a back door. So give it to me. Tell me how to enact it without him.”

 

The Dark One laughs again. Regina watches him, stone-faced, but Emma can see the irritation in his stance. “There _may_ be a way. If you were willing to risk it.” He waves his fingers with renewed glee. “I’ll need a tear.”

 

“For the curse?”

 

“For your payment. That curse is nothing to me. The sooner it’s off my hands, the better.”

 

“Oh.” Regina turns, sees Emma sitting up in bed. They stare at each other for a moment, Emma accusing, Regina intractable. Emma holds out her hands. Regina passes the baby into them.

 

She steps out into the hall and the Dark One produces a vial. “Get on with it. I don’t have all night.”

 

Regina is still watching them, and Emma cradles the baby in her arms as a single tear rolls from Regina’s eye down her cheek. The Dark One catches it in his vial with a satisfied hum and Regina turns back to him and snaps, voice hoarse. “Well? What’s my loophole?”

 

“There is no loophole.”

 

“Rumple,” Regina rumbles dangerously.

 

“Patience.” The Dark One holds up a warning finger. “There is no loophole. A great sacrifice must be made to carry out this curse. But…there are always ways to redirect the magic. To…swindle it, if you will, into accepting the wrong product.”

 

Regina leans forward. “How?”

 

“With one of the most powerful magicks of all,” breathes the Dark One. “A name. The right one can be all that matters. And what is the little tyke’s name?” The Dark One smiles in their direction and Emma glares at him, wishing she hadn’t put it off. Regina is staring at the Dark One as though he’s given her an answer and it’s only filled her with dread.

 

“Get out,” she says, and turns around to the nursery, slamming the door in his face.

 

“I wish you’d keep him from coming into any of your quarters,” Emma says. “I don’t want the baby to be trapped in here to be safe.”

 

“Henry,” Regina says.

 

Emma starts. “What?”

 

“That’s the name you saw. His name. It’s Henry, isn’t it?” Regina’s eyes are gleaming with more tears now, her fists clenched and shaking. “That’s what Rumple was talking about.”

 

“Yeah. Yeah, it was Henry.” Emma holds the baby closer, automatically settling him in for another feeding. “But fuck him. We don’t need to name the baby that if you don’t want to. I thought about James, maybe, or even Quinn if you think–”

 

“No,” Regina says dully. “No, he’s right. There’s no fighting destiny.” She lies down in the bed, a hand on Henry’s back. “This is how it will go. I should never have expected otherwise.”

 

“Oh, please. You don’t have to do any of this, Regina. No one is forcing you to cast some secret curse- what does this curse do, anyway? Who is Henry?”

 

Regina’s fingers dip against Emma’s thighs, and Emma twitches under her touch. “My father,” she says, voice rough with unshed tears, and rises to return to the balcony.

 

* * *

Emma focuses on Henry and on herself.

 

She’s beginning to return to normal, is riding and running and practicing with a sword and bow in the afternoons with the queen’s guards (“Isn’t she Swan Hood?” the captain of the guard asks the first time she arrives. Regina offers him a warning look and Emma grins and he hands her a sword). She doesn’t feel quite as exhausted anymore and Regina tends to take the nights when she isn’t feeding Henry so she can regain her strength.

 

“I need you alert and capable when you’re taunting my guards,” Regina says with marked disapproval. “I won’t have Henry lose his mother over an ego trip.”

 

“Is that what we’re calling me protecting the villagers from you?”

 

“Whatever.” Regina is sitting at the dressing table in their room, inspecting her hair as she magically teases it. Emma is sprawled out on their new rug, fingers tucked under Henry’s armpits so he’s propped up on her still-puffy stomach. “I have to go out today.”

 

“I couldn’t tell.”

 

“Shush.” Regina squints at herself again, biting down on her lower lip and releasing it. “I’ll…I’ll be back later. I think.”

 

“You think?” This isn’t some kind of standard nefarious business. Regina today looks genuinely tense about what’s to come.

 

Emma tries not to focus on Regina, who might be planning their eventual demise and certainly is planning Snow’s. Is today the day she finishes her off, while Emma stays home and plays house with their son? Is she supposed to be silent and content with that because they need to stay stable for Henry?

 

She needs to leave again soon, to spend her days away from the castle even if she returns at night to see Henry. With the cloud of bliss that her pregnancy here had brought finally gone, the old concerns are settling back in. So she works and fights and practices until she’s certain her body will be able to handle the typical strain of her day job.

 

That day is coming soon.

 

Today, though, Emma’s tension remains as Regina pauses over them, crouching down on her knees to cover Henry with little kisses and then put a gentle one on the top of Emma’s head. “Take care of him,” she murmurs. “I’ll be back…tonight, I hope. If all goes well.”

 

“And if it doesn’t?”

 

Regina bites her lip again, eyes hardening with determination. “I’ll be back.”

 

It’s those eyes again. The ones she’d seen that first day in the coach, the eyes terrified of her mother but determined to do _the right thing_ at any cost. That somehow, this is all worth it.

 

It’s impossible that Regina is going to…

 

But her mother is powerful, maybe powerful enough that she would help with this curse, and Emma spends the day tense with Henry, finally handing him off to the wet nurse (Regina had gone into town under disguise and selected a girl she’d decided was capable and trustworthy. As of yet, she hasn’t allowed the nurse to touch Henry once in her presence) and heading downstairs to work off the stress of Regina’s mystery trip.

 

She’s out until long after sundown and there’s been no reappearance of the queen. Frustrated, she heads upstairs and takes a quick bath, pulling on a robe and stalking back to the room. “Thea?”

 

But the nursemaid isn’t in the room. Instead there’s a vaguely familiar-looking elderly man sitting in the nursery rocking chair, Henry on his lap, and Emma pauses in the doorway, reaching for her knife and coming up short. _Right._ Still in her clothes.

 

“You must be Emma,” the man says. He smiles and Emma suddenly realizes exactly who he is with a sinking sensation. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

 

“I used to see you in the gardens with Regina sometimes, back when I used to come by to annoy her.” Henry gurgles, little hands moving at the sound of her voice, and Emma pulls up the footstool of the rocking chair to sit beside them.

 

“She was rarely so happy as when you came to visit. I thought she’d fallen in love with some miscreant in the woods.” Regina’s father smiles at her.

 

“I was a miscreant in the woods,” Emma informs him.

 

Henry Sr. laughs. “A very lovely one, it seems. And now you’ve given my daughter a beautiful son.” He leans back, Henry curling against him. “I could hardly believe the difference in her. When I was taken to Wonderland by her mother, she was so angry and bitter… But here she loves again. I haven’t seen her this happy since before she married the king.” He smiles at Emma like it’s _her_ , like she’d done this for Regina when it’s been Henry all along, and Emma flushes and shakes her head.

 

“She loves Henry.”

 

“She does,” Henry Sr. agrees, his eyes distant for a moment. “Sometimes I do wonder what would have happened if she’d only been allowed to marry her Daniel. Have his children. Live the simple life she’d craved.”

 

“Why didn’t you–“ Emma begins, and then stops abruptly. She isn’t here to make an enemy of Regina’s father, even if she’s been thinking about it for days. How he can be the person Regina loves most in this world beyond Henry ( _and her_ , she refuses to contemplate) and still have let her endure so much pain. He might be no Cora, but he’s certainly not blameless.

 

“Stop it? I didn’t think I had the power.” Henry Sr. sits forward again. “Now I wonder. I’ve spent quite a bit of time locked away, and it’s been time to think and…I failed Regina at every turn. I sought to keep her alive in a hostile world- did you know what her mother did to her sister?”

 

Emma is startled into speaking. “Regina has a sister?”

 

“ _Had_.” Henry Sr. shakes his head. “I did what I could to protect her from…worse fates than the one she’d endured. The king was neglectful, perhaps, but not as cruel as some men could be. I gave Regina what I could to be sure she was safe and prosperous and had the life her mother had thought so desirable. And she was miserable. She’d only wanted that simple home with Daniel.” He sounds truly regretful and Emma softens a little, sees the gentleness in his eyes that Regina still has in her own. Around Henry, sometimes around Emma…Regina may have learned to be a queen from her mother, but Emma knows at once that she’d learned goodness from her father.

 

“She loves you anyway,” she says, and Henry Sr. smiles at her and rocks Henry and Emma hates that fucking curse that Regina’s so set on casting so much, for what Regina has to be willing to give up to cast it.

 

And then Regina says from behind them, “Daddy! You found Emma,” and there’s so much open joy on her face when she looks upon the three of them that Emma can’t believe she’d ever want to cast a curse at all and lose any of this.

 

Emma slides to the floor so Regina can perch on the footstool and Emma rests her head against Regina’s thigh, listening as she begins a full litany of all of Henry’s achievements thus far.

 

* * *

Henry is five weeks old when Emma decides that she’s ready to venture back to the Merry Men. “Just for one overnight trip,” she says, curling in tighter to Regina. Henry kicks vigorously between them. “Let them know I’m alive and will be back and forth. You’re going to be okay, right?”

 

“Yes, Emma.”

 

“And Henry has Thea to nurse him. And your dad will make sure he’s held a lot and moved around. I don’t want him to lie in his crib all day. He needs fresh air, too.”

 

Regina strokes her hair back reassuringly. “He’s going to be fine. I’ll be in here as often as I can, and I’ll sleep in the nursery tonight. Henry has another mother, remember?”

 

Emma nods, eyes on Henry as his body scrunches up and stretches out again. “I’ve never left him before.”

 

“You’re not meant to be indoors playing nursemaid, Emma. You’d go mad with it.” Regina kisses the crook of her finger. “You are not your parents. You’re going to come back home. Henry will never be alone with no one to love him, I swear to you.”

 

“Okay.” She rolls out of bed with reluctance but beams at Regina, the certainty in her voice a calming reassurance. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

 

Regina’s eyes glint with sudden promise. “If you make it back in time, you can come join me at a banquet tomorrow night.”

 

“Why would I–“

 

“At George’s castle,” Regina adds, and Emma’s eyes light up.

 

“ _Excellent_.”

 

She dresses in a hurry and kisses Henry goodbye again, heart wrenching as she steps out of the room. _You are not your parents._ She isn’t abandoning Henry by leaving back to her old life. They’ve already talked it out, agreed that Emma would continue her responsibilities in the woods and return a few times a week to spend time at the castle with Henry. She _is_ already anxious to go back to her other home, already tiring of spending most of her time with a baby, but it feels ungrateful to acknowledge that.

 

And she misses Henry already. The moment she climbs onto Beetle and rides for the forest, it’s like an ever-present ache in her chest, guilt and fear and longing for the boy she’d left behind. _I’m coming back_ , she reminds herself. _This isn’t just about Regina anymore_. They can’t afford to battle or form new schisms, not within Henry’s life, and Regina would never keep her from him.

 

She rides the familiar path back into the woods, ties up Beetle near the furthest edge of the camp, and ventures forward, a knife in her hand. “Hello?” she starts, tentative. There are voices in the distance, or maybe that’s just the whispering of the trees? “John? Will? Al?”

 

A figure moves toward her in a blur and Emma spins, knife out, and barely blocks a scimitar as it arcs toward her. _Scimitar?_ She shoves back and there’s another flash of green, lighter than Emma’s newly restored cloak, circling her again.

 

Emma drops the knife, fumbles for a sword and blocks the blow, driving her attacker forward and hurling him onto the ground. _No. Not_ him. She blinks at the woman on the ground, olive-skinned and green-eyed with dark hair tied long behind her and the marks of middle pregnancy at her stomach.

 

With a snarl, the woman rises again, and then there’s a familiar voice behind Emma. “Swan? Swan, is that you?”

 

“Will!” She turns and lands in his arms, and there’s a gathering of Merry Men around him, reaching for her and laughing and even- in Little John’s case- lifting her into the air like she’s still fourteen.

 

“We thought you were dead!”

 

“I thought you’d run off with Neal.” Alan-a-Dale squints at her. “You hadn’t run off with Neal, had you?”

 

“Nah, I just had some nasty run-ins with the Dark One. I’m fine now.” She grins at them. “And I’ve heard that George is throwing a banquet tomorrow night, so I think we have some work to do.” There’s hooting and approval and a long-suffering sigh from the woman who’d nearly sliced off Emma’s head, and Emma turns to her. “Have we met?”

 

The woman shakes her head. “I’ve heard of you, of course. I am Sultana Jasmine of Agrabah.”

 

Emma’s brow furrows. “We have sultans hanging out in the woods now?” The pieces all come together. “Oh! _You’re_ Al’s lady love?”

 

“You sound so surprised.”

 

Emma smirks. Jasmine smirks back, and Emma likes her already. “He’s Al. I’m surprised he really _has_ a lady love, let alone a sultana.”

 

“Hey!” Al protests. “We won her back her kingdom!”

 

Jasmine rolls her eyes. “The Merry Men helped. Briefly. In backup. _I_ won back my kingdom.” She touches her abdomen. “Still, though, unrest remains. Jafar’s sorcerers can know nothing of an heir until they’re fully vanquished. So we’ve returned here for the time being to keep the baby safe. My warriors send news back.”

 

“You’re living in the woods and pregnant?”

 

“We had a cabin built not too far from here,” Al explains, settling a hand around Jasmine’s waist.

 

“Oh.” Emma wonders for a moment about the sustainability of that, of a cabin in the woods with a cradle and her Merry Men on hand to care for the baby. Regina would _never_.

 

Jasmine is looking at her curiously, eyes flickering down to Emma’s barely visible paunch with a dawning suspicion, and Emma licks her lips nervously and smiles. “Well, I wish you luck. I’ll do my best to keep your child safe.”

 

“Thank you.” Jasmine inclines her head and moves forward, falling into step with her and steering her toward the east.

 

Emma says, on a hunch, “I don’t suppose you’ve been in touch with Snow White, have you?” Snow does have a gift for finding strange women in the woods, and Jasmine’s regarding her like someone who knows a bit too well where she’s been in the past months.

 

“You’re the mysterious friend she’s been talking about. She isn’t happy with you,” Jasmine concedes. “But I suppose she didn’t know about the child.”

 

Emma tenses. “And she won’t.”

 

“Not if you don’t wish. Regardless of what monster is raising the baby, even a monster’s child shouldn’t be put at risk.”

 

There’s a headache again, the familiar _Regina-is-the-Evil-Queen_ - _out-here_ awareness that she hates to contemplate, but she says anyway, “I think you’d like her.”

 

“You met me five minutes ago.”

 

“I think most people would like her,” Emma says loyally, and feels very foolish about it. “She’s just…She’s a good mother. And occasionally a vengeful queen. But a good mother.”

 

Jasmine stares at her for a moment, then says, “I see,” like she isn’t sure about what to do with that.

 

They reach the cabin. It’s decorated well for a little house in the woods, a royal seal across the door that would dissuade visitors, and two guards stand aside when Jasmine comes into view. “She refuses to come inside. She’s been concerned about casualties to the queen. But I can…” She whistles, letting a bird perch on her finger for a moment and then flutter away. “She’ll be here soon.”

 

Sure enough, it isn’t long before Snow is coming through the woods, eyes widening when she sees Emma. “Emma!” She rushes to her, no sign of resentment on her face. “Oh, Emma, you’re home!”

 

Her arms are wrapped tightly around Emma and Emma closes her eyes, feels the sheer love that Snow carries around as warmth against her. Whatever their disagreements, Snow cares unconditionally for her, and it’s a relief to know now. “Hi.”

 

Snow lets her go, holds her by her shoulders for a moment and shakes her head. “I’ve been so worried. You shot Regina for me! Why did you stay there?” She doesn’t wait for a response. “I’m so glad you’re home again.”

 

And Emma is wary of letting Snow believe a lie, but it seems easier now to smile and murmur, “Mostly, yes.” She clears her throat. “What about you? What have you been up to?”

 

Snow shrugs, looking suddenly heartsick. “Running away from the queen’s guards, mostly. Hiding out here. Thinking.”

 

“About David,” Emma guesses.

 

“David?”

 

“About James,” Emma amends, and Snow flushes.

 

“I know it’s ridiculous. You don’t just…meet someone and fall in love.” She sounds like she’s trying to convince herself and failing miserably.

 

“Sometimes you do.” Emma thinks about _You had good eyes_ and a lonely, brave girl in a carriage. She’d fallen at once, if Regina had taken just a bit more time. “It doesn’t mean it isn’t love for you or for him. Though…you should probably get to know each other a bit.”

 

“He’s getting married to another woman. I think I’m better off not knowing him at all.”

 

In the futures Emma has seen, there are more than a few where David and Snow are happily together and in love- she thinks she might’ve been _their_ child in one of them, but the less she contemplates that the better. In several others, David is married to Abigail or beginning a courtship with her. “I think if there’s a thread to explore there, it’s never going to feel right until you do,” she says carefully.

 

Snow sighs and stares out into the woods. “There’s no use,” she says glumly. She straightens. “I’m to see Red soon. She’ll be glad to hear you’re alive. But I should travel in that direction now.” She gives Emma another hug, tight and tearful, and heads back into the woods.

 

* * *

Emma sleeps fitfully at camp, tosses and turns and misses Regina’s arms around her. She hasn’t slept with someone else in a permanent kind of way since she’d been a child in homes with not enough beds for everyone, but she’d…gotten used to it along the way. Gotten used to playing house with someone she loves, little kisses in innocent places and the peace that settles in her chest whenever she watches Regina and Henry together. They’re _happy_ , the three of them, and she thinks she’s made a terrible mistake in leaving at all.

 

But she’d be restless forever, alone in the castle with a baby. She’d crave the opportunity to help the downtrodden and she’d wind up resenting Regina for keeping her and pursuing her darker ends while Emma surrenders the good she does. Theirs is not a maintainable relationship, she knows that intellectually.

 

Emotionally, she wraps her arms around her in her tent and pretends that they’re Regina’s like some sad, lovesick girl.

 

* * *

They spend the morning on the roads to King George’s kingdom, holding up carriages and snatching up valuables, and Emma’s finally beginning to feel like herself again. Her men still follow her easily, they spread out for a productive haul, and aside from the ill-fated moment when Alan-a-Dale gets a bit too close to the wrong carriage and is nearly turned into a gold statue, it’s all easy as pie.

 

“I actually have an invite to this banquet,” Emma informs Little John as Regina’s carriage approaches down the road, the last to arrive. The Men give it a wide berth, knowing too well how _that_ robbery would go.

 

John raises an eyebrow. “You’ve been with the queen, haven’t you.” It isn’t a question.

 

“I was recovering from my ordeal!” she says, mock-indignant. “I was in no state to come home after being in prison for seven months.”

 

“It took you three months to recover?”

 

Thankfully, Regina chooses that moment to halt her carriage, the door opening in invitation. “You’re not dressed yet,” she sniffs, poking her head out to glare at Emma.

 

Emma shrugs and dismounts from Beetle, waving goodbye to Little John. He watches, his mouth quirking upwards under his mustache. “I had some last-minute business.”

 

“I’m sure.” Regina holds out a dress. It isn’t one of hers, doesn’t even have a corset to close Emma in to look proper. It’s simple and green, swan wings embroidered along the arms and at the waist.

 

Emma blinks at it. “Did you have a dress specially made to piss off King George tonight?”

 

Regina smiles with feline danger. “I like to remind the royalty in this kingdom just how much more powerful I am than they.”

 

“So bringing Swan Hood as your escort to a King George party is just a power play.”

 

“Well, yes. I also enjoy spending time with you.” Regina lifts her hand in Emma’s, holds it expectantly until Emma presses a kiss to it. There’s already a difference to her outside of the castle, more demanding and calculated and menacing. Emma’s already more on edge around her now.

 

And fantasizing a tiny bit about what they might get up to on their way to the palace.

 

Regina watches her change, lips curled into a hungry smile throughout, and Emma gulps under the fabric and pulls it over her head. Regina leans forward. “Sit.” She sits. Regina buttons each button painstakingly, fingers brushing against Emma’s back with every button.

 

“So, uh…” It’s a struggle to remember how to speak. “How…was Henry last night?”

 

“An absolute dream,” Regina hums. “But he missed you. I tried playing with that snake toy you dangle over him and he looked at me as though I was mad.”

 

Emma grins. “Ma’s special toy. Henry gets it.”

 

The carriage comes to a halt and Regina rises, holding out her elbow for Emma. Emma slides out of the carriage first, helps Regina down courteously, takes her elbow.

 

“Very charming.”

 

“I try.” She nods to one of the guards- Berkeley, she thinks she can see under the mask, whom she’d knocked onto his ass one day last week- and he gives her a derisive eyeroll at the implied order. Regina mimics her nod and Berkeley moves forward at once, the other guards fanning out behind her.

 

Regina waves her hand at the doors to the banquet hall and they fly open, Regina pausing in front of them as she waits to be greeted. The tables packed with nobles fall silent as Regina-induced fear sweeps over them. “Sorry I’m late,” Regina announces. “My escort was a bit tied up with her work– well. I’m sure you all know about her work.” She smiles winningly at the slew of slightly poorer nobles the Merry Men had robbed earlier.

 

Emma mimics Regina’s smile. King George looks apoplectic with rage and fear. 

 

Regina waits, expectant, and he stands up with a glower. “Queen Regina. It is an honor to have you here at our happy event.” His nod gets increasingly jerkier as he turns to Emma. “Swan Hood.”

 

“Don’t be rude,” Regina says, eyes dancing. “You’ve known her since she was a babe. Address her as a lady.”

 

Emma thinks George’s eyes might bug out. “I will not–“

 

“Our kingdoms have gotten so close of late,” Regina says mildly. “It’d be such a shame for there to be reason for hostility, what with your kingdom so deeply in debt to mine.”

 

“Lady Swan,” George says through gritted teeth.

 

“There,” Regina says, satisfied. “Easier than abandoning a baby.” Emma and George choke in unison. “Emma, if you’ll accompany me to our seats?”

 

Emma finds the empty spot at the royal table, just below the dais. “What was that?”

 

Regina shrugs, taking her seat. “I’ve wanted to do that for years. Worse, really.”

 

“On my behalf.” Emma can’t help the way her heart feels heavy and warm at the thought of Regina furious for her, plotting humiliation for George for a cast-aside child who’d spent years fighting a larger-than-life abandonment.

 

“Mm.” She kisses Emma’s cheek and straightens, smiling pleasantly- dangerously, always dangerous- at King Stefan across the table as he gawks at them.

 

Emma notices quickly that for all Regina’s grand entrances and cohort of knights, she’s downright quiet at the banquet table. She doesn’t eat, doesn’t do much but insert menacing one-word comments that put all the other royals on edge, and she doesn’t bother with small talk at all, even when engaged.

 

Emma has little patience for small talk, either, and she traces fingers across Regina’s dress as she glances up at the reason why she’d come. David is sneaking glimpses back at her, none too subtly, and even Abigail is watching him curiously.

 

He raises his eyebrows and darts a glance at the door, and she tangles her fingers in Regina’s in farewell and slips away from the table to wait for him.

 

He wraps her in an embrace the moment they’re alone, glad-faced and guileless without wariness even of her method of arrival. “I had no idea you were actually _involved_ with the Evil Queen,” he says when they part. “Is that where you’ve been all these months? Locked up in her…dungeon?”

 

He makes the word _dungeon_ sound like something far more lewd, and Emma’s eyes go wide as David stumbles. “Never mind! Never mind. So…you’re Swan Hood? Really? You once got my farm through a bad winter years ago.” He gazes at her for a moment. “My mother had been under the impression that when James had been adopted, it had been to be your brother in some luxurious noble home.”

 

It’s unfair, the relief that washes over her when she hears that. Her birth mother deserves no benefit of the doubt, no easy out of _I thought this was your best chance_ when she’d been on the streets at thirteen. And yet it’s comforting to know that David’s mother had believed the lie. “Your mother didn’t know King George.”

 

“No, she really, really didn’t.” David laughs, a faraway look in his eyes. “After this banquet, I’m to spend the next two weeks at King Midas’s castle in preparation for my…wedding. King George has informed me on several occasions that my mother’s future hinges on my marriage.”

 

Emma knows those eyes, had seen them on Snow the day before. “I’m sorry.”

 

“She would want to meet you.” David clasps a hand against her cheek, focuses on her face with sudden intensity. “She would be so proud to see how you’ve grown.”

 

Emma bites her lip, uncomfortable. “You don’t even know me.”

 

“I’ve heard of you. When I realized who you were after we met, I searched for every bit of information I could get about you. And in George’s castle, it wasn’t hard.” He laughs again, eyes sparkling, and there’s something so simple about the way he looks at her, like she’s already family to him. It’s the same quality Snow has, the easy love for her, and she understands none of it but is drawn to them all the same. “You are a noble outlaw, you’ve saved dozens of hungry towns, and you protect Snow White even under the Evil Queen’s purview. I think she’d be very proud. I’m proud to know you.”

 

Emma’s voice is lodged somewhere in her throat and refuses to emerge. David turns away from her, giving her some privacy as they walk. “I don’t know if I’d want to know her,” she finally manages.

 

“You don’t have to if you don’t wish. But if you do…” David shrugs. “I can tell you where to go.”

 

“Thank you.” They stand in silence for a moment, Emma watching new carriages arrive through the window as the strains of music begin from the dining hall. “If you want me to carry a message to Snow…”

 

“It’s no use,” David says swiftly. “I’m to be married to Abigail. It isn’t negotiable.” There’s a dark cast to his face now, grimness in defeat that wipes away the simplicity that had been there before, and Emma hurts for them both. “My mother-“

 

She almost says then that his mother wouldn’t want his life to be squandered for her, that if his mother really is as wonderful as he seems to think then she would grant him Snow over her own safety. But Emma’s learned pragmatism over love. When not under the influence of too much absinthe, she knows to put aside inconvenient feelings, to keep Regina at arms’ length and expect ultimate disappointment.

 

So instead she says, “Snow talks to birds.”

 

David squints at her, startled. “What?”

 

“If you changed your mind about sending her a message. You can just…tell the birds to find her and they will.” His eyes light up again, the grimness fading, and Emma knows that Snow will get that message from him soon.

 

David is relaxed at once, returning to the dance floor with her and twirling her around it once in defiance after his obligatory first dance with Abigail. His mood seems to have lifted with only the potential of a change- _a chance, a tiny chance for a happy ending_ , he murmurs to her as he returns her to a genuinely smiling Regina- and in a moment of weakness, Emma wonders if it’s really that easy. If she can just let love in and accept it without reservations and that’d be…

 

But it’s a moot point with Regina. They aren’t different in all the ways that Snow and David aren’t different, but with them it doesn’t work. They’re too stubborn, too caught in their own value systems- and Regina’s is _fucked up_ , Emma reminds herself- and too unwilling to give anything more than absolutely necessary. All they agree on is that none of that matters when it comes to Henry, and even that feels like a ticking time bomb some days.

 

Still, though, she dances with Regina and can’t hide her sudden doubts, not even when Regina murmurs, “Are you all right?” and then steps back, predatory smile back on her lips for their audience.

 

“Just…thinking.” They return to their carriage before the event ends, Regina gliding through the crowd as they watch her with amazement. She’s made an impression, though Emma doesn’t know if it’s quite the fearsome one that she’d been aiming for. David mouths _goodnight_ at her as they step out of the room, the smile still light on his lips, and Emma spares a smile for him as she follows Regina.

 

The ride back to the castle is long, and they return to a mostly dark home. Thea and Regina’s father are both moving around in their chambers, Henry awake in the dark, and Emma hurries to him. “Hey, little guy,” she coos, and Henry avoids her eyes. “Henry?”

 

“It’s natural when a parent first leaves a child,” Thea says soothingly, moving to retrieve him. Regina dismisses her with a glare and takes Henry instead. He gurgles in her arms, curling up against the bare skin above her dress.

 

Emma tries not to let it sting and pulls up her legs beside Regina on the nursery bed, gazing down at Henry. Regina watches him with indulgent eyes, the Evil Queen gone in an instant, and Emma wraps a cautious arm around hers to stroke Henry’s back.

 

“He’s been crying most of the night,” Henry Sr. murmurs. “I stayed with him and calmed him as best as I could.”

 

Regina’s eyes glow when she looks at her father now, grief already apparent in them in their every interaction. “Thank you, Daddy.” He smiles at her, at all of them, and slips out of the room as Regina watches him sadly.

 

And Emma wonders again, because whatever Regina is resigned to, she clearly _isn’t_ as resigned as she thinks. She isn’t desperate anymore, and the bitter danger of the past has all but settled into a convenient mask instead of her reality. So Emma says, “Don’t do it.”

 

“What?”

 

Henry finally reaches for Emma, and she holds him to her, cradles him and rocks him and sets him down in his crib before leading the way out of the room. “This curse. Whatever it is that you’re trying to cast. Don’t do it.”

 

“Emma, it isn’t that simple.”

 

“Isn’t it?” Emma leans forward. “You don’t need some curse to be happy. You’re happy _now_.”

 

Regina sighs. “I can’t be happy until–“

 

“Fuck Snow White,” Emma cuts her off. “You’re _letting_ her ruin your life again.” Regina’s eyes flash but Emma doesn’t back down. “You’re taking away the things you love, and for what? To destroy Snow? What do you need her for?”

 

Regina sits down on her bed, hands buried in the comforter. “What am I if the past decade has been in vain, Emma? I can’t just…there’s no way to stop the direction I’ve gone in.” She shakes her head, hands moving up to drum against her knees and her eyes angry and hesitant. "Snow...taking my vengeance...it's all I've _had_. It's all that's kept me _alive_. What can I be without it?"

 

“Bullshit.” Emma’s own fists clench and this is ridiculous, fighting with Regina an ever-losing battle. She doesn’t know why she’d thought this would be any different. She isn’t supposed to fight for Regina anymore.

 

Except it _is_ different now. There’s a little boy in the next room who’s made Regina different, given her love again. “What are you? You’re a mother, Regina. You’re a mother and a daughter and you’re my…my… Just throw out that damn curse and come back to us, okay?” she says helplessly, squeezing her nails into her palms. “You have so much love now. You don’t need to give it up for hate.”

 

Regina isn’t angry, isn’t defensive, and Emma feels impossible hope creeping within her as Regina’s eyes glimmer. “Come here,” Regina orders, and Emma walks to the bed, stands before Regina as Regina stares up at her.

 

“Turn around,” Regina says, and Emma turns, uncertain of what might come next. Is Regina furious at her presumption, is she shrugging it off, is she playing mind games? Emma doesn’t know. Emma shivers under Regina’s touch as she traces the material of the swan dress.

 

Regina begins to unbutton the dress, as delicately as she’d first buttoned it, and goosebumps break out along the line where she grazes Emma’s skin. The room is suddenly heated, Emma’s breath coming out in unsteady gulps, and she’s afraid to speak and shatter this silent moment.

 

“Turn around,” Regina says softly. Emma turns, the dress falling to her feet.

 

Regina is still dressed in full Evil Queen regalia, but the deadly poise of it has faded, and instead there’s only a woman wearing a dress, unrecognizable as the Evil Queen. Regina is someone else when she’s uncertain, when she’s gentle, when her eyes flicker across Emma as though she’s decided to…

 

This is an exchange of vulnerability, tentative and naked, and Emma waits.

 

“There are other curses,” Regina says at last, a concession for herself rather than a threat to Emma. “And this price is too high.”

 

Emma collapses under the strain of Regina’s offering, leans forward and kisses her with such relief and forfeit at once that Regina sighs, stands up to reach her and kisses her back with her arms around Emma’s waist and her dress fading away as Emma tugs at it.

 

Emma nips at her lip, bends forward to attack the chest bared all night and move down to her cleavage. Regina jerks to her, wraps her legs around Emma and the two of them stagger to the wall.

 

It’s been so long, too long since Regina had been draped around her like this. They play at cuddles and fleeting kisses, at toeing the line and never crossing it, and a sob escapes from Regina’s mouth as Emma tongues her breasts and squeezes her ass. “Missed you,” she manages, her hands fluttering along Emma’s front and untying her underclothes as her head falls back at Emma’s ministrations.

 

“Love you,” Emma counters, spinning them around so she can lay Regina down on the bed. Regina lies open for her, trusting still, and _oh god_ this is going to end. This is ill thought out and a disaster in the making and it’s going to end and she’ll never again get to-

 

She forces aside that awareness and climbs after Regina, buries her face between her legs and commits the taste of her to her memories, ties it to a thousand possibilities that she’d dreamed that had all ended with them forever. Regina tightens her thighs on either side of Emma and holds her down to her center and sobs, “Emma. Emma. Emma,” again and again and Emma kisses her labia, trails her tongue against her clit and listens to Regina write a song within her cries.

 

She _loves_ her, loves this woman who is only a woman and never the monster the world believes. She fears her only for what might be and never for what _is_ , for Regina battling against the past with one cruel hand and protecting the ones she loves with kind embrace. Regina in all her glorious complexity remains the love of her life, the closest thing to a soulmate she can imagine.

 

Even the Evil Queen. Even the one Emma’s certain will tear them apart.

 

It’s only Regina writhing under her mouth, only Regina who wipes out villages and cradles Henry in her arms and plans curses that require terrible deaths. Only Regina who’d been a girl queen and an avenging queen and the one they call Evil. Only Regina she’s inextricably linked to after all this time.

 

She’d tried to pull away, tried to keep her distance, tried to hush her love like a secret that should never have seen the light of day. But still she’d come. And still Regina tugs her forward, grants her visions of a future worth living, dares to turn and gaze at the future with her side-by-side. And still Emma longs for that future, invites it in and offers it to Regina in turn, and still they only stumble forward when they’re together.

 

Hope, Emma thinks as Regina shakes silently around her, more than vengeance or hatred or wrath; hope is the most dangerous emotion there is.

 


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter covers flashbacks from 7:15 AM, Heart of Darkness, An Apple Red as Blood, and the beginning of A Land Without Magic. You may be suspecting by now that shit's about to get real. 8)
> 
> I probably won't update next week so I can work on my [Swan Queen Week](http://swanqueenweek.tumblr.com/post/108145168513/the-4th-biannual-swan-queen-week-begins-sunday) offerings, but I'll be back as soon as I can with the next update! Two more chapters after this one until Part II ends, and then we'll do the interlude before I take a hiatus to prepare Part III. :)

Beetle races down the road along the woods and Emma atop him squints out toward the castle grounds, urging him to the side as soon as they can run across well-trimmed fields and to the gardens. They come to a stop just a few feet from where Henry Sr. is standing by the apple tree, and Emma drops off of Beetle and to the grass just outside the road that surrounds it.

 

Regina is- of all the improbable sights- stretched out under the trees just out of sight of anyone who might be passing by, her dress spread out around her and Henry comfortably lying on her stomach, little lips split into a smile. She’s blowing out air and producing colorful puffs of magic from it, and Henry swipes at one and loses his balance, tumbling off of Regina and safely onto her arm on the ground.

 

“Tough day, huh?” Emma tosses a sack to Regina and she sits up, opening it and pulling out a little stuffed rabbit for Henry.

 

Regina passes it to him. Weak little hands struggle to get it into his mouth. “We leave for the summer palace next week. The kingdom is quiet now.”

 

“Yeah, even the roads are fairly empty. People are heading to King Midas’s castle now for the wedding.” Emma purses her lips, vaguely displeased about the whole matter. She’s seen Snow only briefly over the past two weeks and she knows David has been back and forth between Midas’s and George’s palaces, preparing for his marriage. She’d thought one of them would have _done_ something by now, but the wedding goes on.

 

When she looks up, Regina is watching her curiously. “You seem to have gotten a bit closer to James of late.”

 

“James. Right.” Emma shrugs and says carefully, “He knows he’s my brother and he’s…not opposed to it, I guess. It’s very new.” And she’s already protecting him from Regina.

 

Regina smiles at her, eyes warm. “I’m glad you’ve gotten that chance.”

 

“So am I.” Emma is incapable of resisting when Regina looks like this, perfect hair coming loose where Henry had pulled at it, face glowing with affection for both of them, unguarded and simple and perfect. She leans in and steals a kiss, Regina sighing happily into it.

 

When they separate again, Regina’s face is somber. “While you were gone…” Emma had left for the woods again earlier this week, had been away two days before returning to Regina now. “I went to Maleficent, traded away the curse.”

 

_Traded?_ is Emma’s first thought, but she brushes it aside. “That’s…It’s good to hear.” Her eyes flicker to Henry Sr., still sitting peacefully at the apple tree. He nods to her, but his brow is furrowed in concern and she still feels that same dread, that forever knowledge that this will all fall apart soon.

 

But she scoots over again, kisses Regina and feels an arm encircle her as Henry is squashed between them, and she clings to the present as tightly as she fears the future. “So how long are we going to be at the summer palace?” It’s actually closer to her camp in the woods than this castle, and she’s planning on making the trip back and forth more often, enjoying a bit of peace with her family.

 

“A month, I thought. I’ll be accompanied by a full guard but I want you to ride there with Henry and my father and Thea in a carriage the next day.” Regina strokes Henry’s back absentmindedly, and Emma tickles under his chin until he smiles again. “I’d like him to be hidden for as long as we can feasibly do so.”

 

“Then why–“ Emma begins, gesturing around them. “Won’t they see him here?”

 

“I was careful.” Regina wiggles her fingers and Emma sees for the first time a shimmer in the air around them, sealing the four of them into privacy. “But he needs to see the sun.” She shakes her head. “I spent far too many years inside, longing for…freedom. For open air and sunshine.”

 

“In the castle.”

 

“Not just in the castle.” Regina’s eyes are abruptly haunted, the shadows of years with a woman Emma had known only briefly returning to them. She shakes her head, freeing the darkness from her eyes. “Once he’s moving around, our chambers won’t be enough for him. He’ll want to be outside, playing…”

 

“Meeting other kids,” Emma puts in, and Regina blinks at her as though that had never occurred to her. “Didn’t you have any friends when you were a kid?”

 

Regina keeps staring at her. “You’ve met my mother.”

 

“Right.” Emma had grown up surrounded by other children at all times, not a moment of privacy or being the _only_ in the childhood she can recall. She thinks she might envy Regina for her solitude, which is irrational, considering what she does know of it, and yet…

 

She squeezes her hands into her lap, disgusted with herself, and Regina says suddenly, “There _was_ a girl. I’d forgotten. Mother sent her away after an… incident…when I was only nine or ten, but we’d been inseparable before that.” There’s a faint smile on her face at the memory, and she wonders, “You really think Henry needs to be around other children?”

 

“I think it’ll be good for him. All those bratty little royal kids who never had friends are kind of…well, brats,” Emma says, laughing a little. “Remember James?”

 

“I remember Snow,” Regina says, lips spreading into a sneer. Her jaw hardens and her eyes are hard like granite and the mood is gone, just like that.

 

When Emma reaches for Henry, it’s because Regina’s hands have gone stiff around him and he’s begun to cry, sensing the change in the air.

 

* * *

She’s back in the woods the next morning, wandering along a large clearing a half hour’s ride from Red’s village in search of Snow. She isn’t hard to find, and Emma’s eyes narrow as she catches sight of her, sitting on a branch at the edge of the woods with something glittering in her hand. “Snow?”

 

Snow looks up, offers her a smile, and pockets what looks like a vial so quickly that Emma isn’t positive it had been there at all. “How have you been, Emma?”

 

“I’ve been…fine. I haven’t seen you in a week.”

 

“I’ve been…fine, too.” Snow’s hand slides into her pocket again, and Emma starts, “What is–“ when a carrier pigeon lands on Snow’s other hand. It drops a scroll in it and flies off, leaving both of them bemused.

 

Snow unrolls the scroll, eyes skimming over the words on it. “I haven’t been expecting any…” Her voice trails off.

 

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Emma sits down beside her, suddenly concerned again about that trade that Regina had made. If this is some kind of demand from her, some ultimatum or worse...

 

Emma is not choosing a side in this. She _can’t_. She has to keep her head down and focus on the Merry Men and Henry and hoping desperately that Regina will give up eventually, let Snow live and think little more of her as Henry grows. It’s the only way for them- for all of them- to be safe and content.

 

But Snow says, “It’s Charming. James. He says…he feels the same way!” She sounds in awe, overwhelmed with the message as she’d been that first day after they’d met. Emma exhales a sigh of relief. “He wants me to come to the castle before the wedding!” Snow laughs breathlessly. “I can’t believe this.”

 

“That’s great.” Emma touches Snow’s hand and Snow seizes it. “You’re going to go?”

 

Snow bobs her head. “Of course! I just need to…I don’t even have a horse.” She looks pleadingly at Emma. “How do I get to King George’s castle? Which direction is it in?” She has a shifty look about her, Snow White afraid to burden Emma but just as desperate to do so, and Emma recognizes it at once.

 

She rolls her eyes affectionately. “Snow?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Do you need a ride to the castle?”

 

Snow’s eyes dance. “Would you, Emma?”

 

She pokes Snow and pulls her up, sensing the beginnings of good news for everyone. David will see Snow again, will run off with her somewhere distant and far from Regina and George. Regina will be able to let Snow go completely as the years pass and there’s no sign of her. They can all be _happy_ , free of this feud, and Henry will grow up safe and untouched by it.

 

She rides with Snow to the castle, finds her a cloak and a bunch of flowers from a friendly shopkeeper who recognizes her, and sends her off with a warning. “Just be careful. The prince might want to see you, but King George has his eyes on him already. I can try to distract him, but I can’t guarantee anything.”

 

Snow throws her arms around Emma, her basket bumping against her back. “You’re a good friend, Emma. I know we…” She sighs. “I felt like you chose Regina over me.”

 

“I didn’t,” Emma swears. “There were circumstances I couldn’t help.” She swallows, wishing she could explain and knowing that this is a truth Snow can’t be told just yet. For Henry’s sake. She spends far too much time brooding about how vulnerable they all would be if the news got out that the seemingly invulnerable Evil Queen has such a weakness, anyway.

 

Snow regards her with a peaceful gaze. “I believe you. And I know you still love her.”

 

There’s no point in denying it. “Yeah.”

 

“I want to…I want to ask you how you could possibly love her. How you can knowwhat she’s done and still be around her.” Snow looks down and Emma bites back a protest, a defense of Regina she shouldn’t be making to the woman Regina has been hunting down. But Snow is already speaking again. “But I understand. I know that you see her and she’s a stranger and then…her whole face lights up and she _smiles_ and god, you love her again.”

 

She wraps the cloak around herself more tightly, a flush bright on her cheeks. “I used to watch her and I knew she wasn’t…I knew she hated me. And I’d still wonder if I could see the Regina I loved and sometimes I _could._ Sometimes it was her. With all she’s done…I don’t know if I could push her away if she came to me again. So I don’t blame you.”

 

“She’s...” _Different now_ , Emma nearly says, and she cringes at her own naiveté. She isn’t going to become Regina’s blind supporter, she’s sworn that a dozen times. She won’t forget who she is just because she shares her bed. She won’t believe in someone who will inevitably disappoint her. “Sometimes I think that given time, the anger might dull,” she says finally, and still feels as though she’s compromising her values with it. “She’s happier now, more willing to…to try.”

 

“She’s seen me once in nearly a year,” Snow reminds her with a sad smile. “And she would have killed me if you hadn’t taken her down. I wouldn’t be so quick to believe this is over.”

 

“You’re probably right,” Emma admits, wrapping her arms around herself under her cloak. “But she did let you live. You don’t think there’s a time when she would have powered past the pain and killed you?”

 

Snow shakes her head. “Regina doesn’t want to kill me. Or, well, she does eventually, but…” She pinches her nose, looking suddenly exhausted. “She wants to punish me first. She wants me to pay for…whateverit is she blames me for. Which you know,” she observes, sharp eyes on Emma’s guilty face. “She’s spoken to you about it.”

 

Emma bites her lip. “I don’t know anything that you don’t,” she says reluctantly, which is mostly true. She thinks. Snow grasps Regina in ways that Emma doesn’t, but she develops a glaring blind spot when it comes to Regina’s relationship with her. “I know Regina’s kind of…horrible. To you. To a lot of people. But she’s good to me.” It sounds awful when she says it, when she takes Henry out of the equation and returns with a truth no less genuine. It sounds awful and _true_ , and Emma is ashamed before Snow.

 

But Snow is nodding her head, still more compassion to offer for Emma. “You’ve devoted your whole life to giving to people. Protecting strangers like me. It’s okay to keep this one selfishness to yourself.” She reaches over to cup Emma’s face in warm hands. “And you love her and she…she loves you as much as she’s capable of loving anyone. You deserve love as much as anyone else.”

 

She beams for a moment, _David_ written all over her face, and Emma says, uncomfortable with talk of her and Regina, “You’re going to find him. And if he’s half as decent as my instincts tell me, it’s all going to work out fine.”

 

Snow lifts her basket again, darting a nervous glance at the castle entrance, and asks, suddenly nervous, “You think so?”

 

Emma rolls her eyes. “Snow, you just gave your blessing to my relationship with the woman trying to _kill_ you. I think you can manage an engaged prince.”

 

Snow presses her lips together, but her eyes are glowing. “Take care of yourself, Emma.”

 

“You too.” Emma watches her vanish into the castle before she rides out again, proudly displaying her cloak as she circles the castle and teases the guards into following her. George is striding out of the palace moments later and Emma rides for the road, confident in the distraction for Snow.

 

It’s all working out perfectly. So naturally, she can’t help but expect the worst.

 

* * *

The worst comes several days later. Regina has already left for the summer palace and Emma is pacing the balcony, rocking a cranky Henry, when she spots a familiar red cloak in the castle gardens below. “Red!”

 

“Red?” Henry Sr. repeats curiously.

 

She hands Henry over. “A friend,” she says, words just careful enough that Henry Sr. nods knowingly and doesn’t comment when she anchors her rope and rappels down the side of the castle.

 

By the time she’s at the bottom, Red is waiting for her impatiently, pacing the stone floor below Regina’s balcony. “Have you heard from Snow? Is the queen here?” She sounds panicked, harried, and Emma feels a thrill of fear pass through her.

 

“I haven’t heard from Snow since we left for George’s castle.” They’d bidden a quick goodbye to Red beforehand, and Emma had been fairly certain that Snow would be fine. George’s security is subpar for someone who’s spent the past several years hiding away from _Regina_. “She never returned?”

 

“Oh, she returned.” Red rocks from side to side, fingers fiddling with her cloak. “She took a potion…I never should have taken her to that wizard.” She’s pacing again and Emma paces in time with her, worry growing. “It made her forget Prince James. I only heard about it from the dwarves she’d been staying with–“

 

“She was living with _dwarves_?” Emma blinks. It’s been a long couple of days, apparently. Red tilts her head, eyebrows rising. “Right. Sorry. So this potion.”

 

“It made her…different. She decided she was going to kill the queen.”

 

Emma’s mouth falls open. “Has she lost her mind?” Of all the foolhardy, absurd plans…

 

“She lost her heart,” Red says grimly. “And she hasn’t been heard from since.”

 

“Regina was headed to the summer palace this morning. That’s enough time for her to have caught Snow and…” Abruptly, Emma swings around and runs for the stables, Red trailing behind her. _Stupid, stupid, stupid!_ It had been just days before when she’d been genuinely certain that they’d been close to some kind of resolution there, that Snow would be safe and Regina would have found better things to live for. And now they’re back to this, Red and Emma in terror for Snow’s life, frantically hunting for her.

 

Emma’s already on top of Beetle when Red says, “Wait. Emma…” She bites her lip. “You’re not going to… You’re living with…” She dances around the question, doubt in her eyes.

 

Emma gives her a _look_ , pointed and as sincere as she can handle. “I don’t know what Regina would become if she killed Snow,” she says honestly. She’s doing this for Snow, first and foremost, but Regina without Snow is a mystery. Snow had been right- Regina wants her punished, wants her to see her crimes and accept them. Snow dead could leave Regina calm and assuaged at last. Or it could leave her furious and frustrated and empty, her life’s greatest passion unresolved and her future bleak even with Henry. “I have to stop her. For both their sakes.”

 

She doesn’t pause to look back at Red for reassurance. There’s no time.

 

Beetle rides out on the path Emma had memorized- Regina had been panicked about them running into a pack of werewolves, or whatever mishaps had occurred on her past trips to the summer palace- and Emma does the whole route in half time, searching frantically for signs of a struggle.

 

_For both their sakes_ , she’d said, and pushed aside the awareness- _selfish, selfish, selfish Emma, who wants to have it all even now_ \- that Snow’s death would mean the death of her relationship with Regina. She can hate herself and accept the deaths of faceless peasants Regina has deemed treasonous, can push them aside with the certainty that Regina has changed. That she’s moved on, that her past is in the past, that it’s only Snow she seeks to harm now.

 

She’s been living in determined ignorance, and Regina’s going to shatter it now. It’s her own fault. She’d made exceptions, chosen to compromise for Henry, and wound up compromising for herself instead. She’s taken the image of the Evil Queen and thought in arrogance that she’d seen so much more, but when she’s honest she knows that she’d only reduced her in her mind, seen only Regina when there’s something despicable lurking beneath the surface.

 

She grits her teeth when she reaches the summer palace when she sees it empty, the stables all but bare and no sign of recent arrivals. She hadn’t missed them along the way. Not unless…

 

_George_. George is still a factor in this, and if Regina had been called to his castle with a new hostage, or if David had been involved and she’s turning him over to him…

 

“Home, Beetle,” she orders the horse, and regrets the word as soon as she says it.

 

She wants to continue to be oblivious. She wants to turn a blind eye to the truth and forget Regina’s past but if Regina’s hurt Snow, if this feud is finally ended, there can be no more forgetting. She won’t be able to live with herself.

 

_Snow, Snow, Snow,_ she recites to herself, riding back to the castle. _I’m going to get you out of here and you’re going to leave and be safe_. She thinks of Snow with her hands cradling Emma’s face and her eyes light with hope and she thinks of the hope that had bled through to her. That David and Snow had somehow made her dream more fervently, see more good where there had been so little, believe in love when she’d been wrung dry of her own.

 

Snow is strong even now, devoted to her people and gentle and loves even those who’ve long since given up on her. And yes, she’d hurt Regina and never known it and Emma understands Regina’s resentment and hatred that had stemmed from that, but she doesn’t deserve to die for it. She _shouldn’t_.

 

She’s done it again, loved someone who’s going to be taken from her, and she rides faster, determined to save both Regina and Snow from each other. Determined to part them before they destroy each other irreparably. Snow and Regina are bound together in a more perverse dependency than even Emma and Regina, love and hate so close that they can only become obsession, and Emma is certain that any ending to the limbo they’re trapped in will doom them both.

 

And her heart sinks down, down, down when she reaches Regina’s castle and sees Rocinante in the stables, the knights who’d ridden with Regina wandering the grounds, and Regina herself standing at her balcony, gazing up at her rappelling gear with visible distaste. “Hello, Emma. I thought you were taking the carriage with Henry to the summer palace.”

 

“I thought you were _going_ to the summer palace,” Emma counters, eyes flickering around Regina. She’d imagined the castle abuzz with the news- _the queen has taken Snow White at last_ \- and yet…the guards seem alert, on edge, but there’s little energy to it. “What brings you back here?”

 

Regina eyes her and extends her elbow, Emma taking it with wary misgiving. “My place is here now. I have some unfinished business.”

 

* * *

She doesn’t leave Emma until dinnertime, escorts her through the castle and says not a word of what had happened on the trip to the summer palace. They’re watchful stares and dark pauses, Regina with eyes that grasp too much of Emma and Emma grim-faced and incapable of hiding her suspicion.

 

They eat late and at the big table in Regina’s chambers. Regina puts Henry down for bed beforehand, laying her hand on his little stomach for a moment longer than necessary, and Emma sees victory glinting in her gaze and is afraid again. “How was your day?” she asks over the roast mutton.

 

“Eventful.” Regina offers everything and nothing all at once. “And yours?”

 

“Eventful.” Emma swallows too much wine and coughs. “So, how much longer before we head out to the summer palace? I was so looking forward to a change in scenery. Some quiet time. Less murder.” Regina’s hand thuds onto the table. Gracefully. And then down to her lap.

 

“How about the day after tomorrow? I have a few matters to…wrap up. It shouldn’t take very long.”

 

“Why don’t we go tomorrow instead? First thing in the morning.” Emma forces a smile. “I can’t imagine you’ve got anything to do that’s more important than Henry getting a chance for some more air. Or the two of us…” Emma waggles her eyebrows suggestively and feels sick about it.

 

Regina says, fingers squeezing her fork so tightly that Emma can see white skin up to her knuckles, “Or we could wait until the day after tomorrow.” _There_. Confirmation that whatever has happened to Snow, it hasn’t happened tonight yet. Regina would be there if it had. For some reason, she’s decided to wait the night out. Good.

 

“Or…we could _not_. Who knows what kind of mood I’ll be in then?” Emma swallows more wine. Regina cocks her head, her gaze boring into Emma. Emma smiles tightly. “So…didn’t you say something about exchanging the curse? What did you trade it for?”

 

Regina shrugs, still watching Emma with an expression Emma can’t place. It looks too much like resignation, and Emma is afraid. “Just a little something for my private collection.”

 

“Is it really necessary?” Emma drinks again. Remembers that she shouldn’t be drunk tonight. Reaches for the water instead and decides to forgo all pretense. She’s terrible at it, anyway. “Don’t do this, Regina.” She leans in toward her, elbow on the table and hand reaching for Regina’s on her lap. “Please. I can’t…you _know_ I can’t…” She can’t finish the sentence, can’t bear to finalize anything, to venture a threat that even now she doesn’t believe will stop Regina.

 

Regina hates Snow more than she loves Emma, which Emma’s always _known_ and accepted and she’s a fool for it.

 

And Regina takes her hand and holds it in her own and it’s never felt more like a departure. “I can’t go to the summer palace until the day after tomorrow,” she repeats, and Emma’s resolve firms.

 

There’s a polite cough from the entryway where Regina’s magic mirror hangs and Regina stands. “I’ll be back soon,” she murmurs, hand sliding up Emma’s arm to her shoulder and her knuckles brushing against Emma’s cheek. Emma flinches away from her.

 

When she looks up, Regina is already looking at her as though she’s lost her. She steps backward from the table, light-footed and slow, and she doesn’t turn until she’s lifted a handheld mirror from below the main mirror and heads out the door.

 

Emma runs to the balcony, throws her rope and slides down as swiftly as she can, runs through the kitchen entrance and circles a corner and hurries down the stairs to the dungeon.

 

She makes it halfway down the stairs when she’s hit with a shockwave so strong that she flies backward, slamming her spine into the stone steps behind her. She chokes out in pain and crumples. Thinks of Snow and rises again, raising her bow.

 

It hits nothingness, passes into the stairs and lands somewhere far below. Tentatively, she steps forward again, reaches out into the spot where she’d been thrown back and hits the barrier again, pressing firmly back into her palm with a faint glow in the air.

 

It’s a barrier just for her. Regina has set up a magical block just to keep her out.

 

She falls back, sits on the steps and leans against them to stave off the shooting back pain, and she’s crumpled there for long minutes before there’s a heavy sigh and Regina is striding up the stairs to her, arrow in hand. “Emma,” she sighs again, running her hand over Emma’s back. The pain cools and fades. “Don’t do this.”

 

“Do you think I can stay upstairs and…drink wine and eat mutton while you murder my friend?” Emma demands incredulously. “Do you think I can go on a holiday with you and raise our son and _pretend_?”

 

Regina’s jaw works under her skin. “I think you don’t grasp how much Snow has doneto me.” Emma had expected…affection, at least. _I don’t think you’d be Emma if you didn’t care_ or something of equal acknowledgement. But today she’s putting a damper on Regina’s great triumph and Regina’s patience is wearing thin. Even for her. “I’ve told you everything. You’ve _seen_ what I’ve been through. And still you’d take her side?”

 

“I’m not taking anyone’s side.” Emma takes a step forward again, bounces against the barrier and trips backward. Regina watches her, stubbornly still this time. “Look. I know Snow did some shitty things to you. I know she’s…completely oblivious about some of it. I know you blame her for what your mother–“

 

“Do _not_.”

 

“Fine.” She goes for the barrier again, this time with more force. It doesn’t seem to be weakening. “I’m not taking sides,” she repeats. “I’m trying to keep her alive and keep you _stable_ , okay? This isn’t a victory. Killing Snow isn’t a victory. You’ve had her on the run for long enough now, can’t you just…keep doing that? Can’t that be enough vengeance for you?”

 

“Nothing can be enough for what she’s done.” Regina grabs her before she can go for the barrier again. “Don’t be an idiot. You can’t bang at magic until it falls.”

 

Emma spins in her grasp, seizes her by the other arm so they’re standing in some perverse kind of dance in the middle of the stairs. “Regina, please. I don’t want to leave,” she whispers, ashamed for the weakness in her voice. Regina will never choose her, not when they fight and love hard but hate harder. And now Emma is vulnerable before, needy enough to admit her secret greed to have it all, and she knows already that it’ll be for naught.

 

Regina softens, the resentment fading just a bit. “I won’t make you. I know you have to…” She waves vaguely toward the dungeons. “Make an effort. But you’ll fail. And then you can come back upstairs. None of this has to change anything.”

 

Emma hates her very much in that moment, hates how she can dismiss _this_ as nothing at all in the long run. But then again, Emma had laughed about it, had shrugged off the Evil Queen and teased her about her obsession and it hadn’t felt real at all for so long. It still doesn’t feel real now, and a part of her is railing against the despair in her veins, is reminding her that their bed is warm and Regina is warmer and Regina isn’t going to kill Snow, ha-ha. Regina’s been around Snow for a decade and hasn’t managed to hurt her and of course she won’t be able to now. “You can’t believe that,” Emma manages.

 

“Come upstairs, Emma,” Regina says, the victory and hostility all gone in place of tiredness. “You can fight this again in the morning. You’ve been riding all day. You must be exhausted.”

 

“Go to hell,” Emma says, and charges for the barrier once more.

 

* * *

Sometime during the night, she passes out, curled up on the stairs and unable to move anymore, sore and worn down and frustrated tears running down her face. She fires all her arrows into the void, nearly maims a guard who tries to force her off the stairs, and shouts _Snow! Snow!_ to an empty stairwell and to the queen’s chambers upstairs.

 

Regina must have ventured back downstairs and healed her during the night because when Emma wakes up, she isn’t worn quite as ragged anymore and there’s daylight glowing down from the windows of the kitchen. She jumps up in a panic, races up the stairs and finds Thea with Henry in their chambers. “She’s already left,” Thea says, apologetic.

 

“Fuck.” Emma runs back down the stairs, her body recoiling by instinct when she nears the barrier, and she sinks down to sit in front of it. “Fuck,” she says again.

 

She can’t fight magic. She’s never trusted it because there’s no fighting it, no resistance that anyone without that gift can offer. There are no fairies who would listen to her plea, no leverage that she can use, nothing but…

 

_Wait_. She clears her throat, standing up again and reaching for her knife as she says the name. “Rumplestiltskin!”

 

He’s there in a flash, as though he’s been waiting for her. “Fancy meeting you down here, Lady Swan.”

 

“Get that barrier down.” She rocks back and forth, refusing to second-guess her decision. She’s making a deal with the devil- one who would gleefully dance in Regina’s destruction- and she doesn’t trust him. But she needs him, for all their sakes. “And I’ll tell you something you want to know.”

 

“I highly doubt you know anything I don’t.” But the Dark One is eyeing her curiously, fingers creeping up the side of his other arm, and she waits silently. “Though…perhaps if you do manage to tell me what I want, I grant you access to the other side. Regina has me barred from her dungeons. But the stairs? I can put you on the other side of them.”

 

“You can’t get the barrier down,” Emma pieces together, and her first reaction is to think of Henry, to be relieved that he’s still safe from the Dark One. “But you can put me on the other side. I’ll be trapped down there until Regina comes?”

 

“Exactly.” The Dark One displays his teeth. “Now, let’s see if you have enough to make this deal.”

 

This, she knows she does. “I met your son,” she says, and the Dark One’s eyes grow hungry and mournful at once, but disbelieving above all. “Baelfire, right? He was here. Years ago,” she says quickly, but the Dark One’s lip curls as though he knows she’s lying. “He left to another world.”

 

“Which world?” Any mirth is gone from the Dark One’s face, any semblance of friendliness gone. In its place is only desperate desire, need that Emma almost understands for a moment. She shudders at the thought of Henry lost to other realms, separated from her forever, and the single-mindedness with which she’d tackle finding him. In an odd way, the Dark One makes sense like this.

 

Except Neal is terrified of his father, fleeing for his life to a world without magic, and Emma can’t betray him just because the Dark One seems to miss him. “I think I’ve told you enough.”

 

“I think I’ll kill you,” the Dark One hisses, his face twisting into something ugly and vicious. “You lied to me. There is no deal. Not unless you tell me where he’s gone.”

 

She chooses her words carefully. “He was in Neverland. And the Land Without Magic. He said he’d traveled many realms to flee from–“ She stops herself, but the Dark One’s face crumples as though he knows exactly how that sentence will end.

 

“Enough,” he snarls, waving his hand. She blinks and she’s on the other side of the barrier, slightly down the stairs. The Dark One is gone.

 

She turns and races for the dungeons.

 

She rounds a corner and nearly crashes into three knights- knights she recognizes, some of the best of Regina’s personal guard. “Oh, _fuck_.”

 

One of them laughs and charges and Emma struggles for the short knife she keeps on her, fending them off as best as she can with it. But it isn’t enough, and she’s in too close range to use her bow, and she’s spinning around, dodging them and angling for their swords with little success. She ducks one blow and slices upward, nicking one of the knights, and he grunts out an irritated noise and tries slamming his sword over her head.

 

As though to knock her unconscious, not kill her. The realization blooms. This is far too easy when she’s so outmatched. These men have been ordered not to harm her.

 

Which means…

 

A howl sounds from down the hall and Emma stops fighting, charges through the men and palms hanging keys from one’s waist and they don’t follow. She’s been maneuvered. This is a diversion. Regina is up to something, covering all her bases, and one of those bases is Emma herself. And that scream isn’t Snow White’s.

 

“What have you done to her? What have you done!” comes a second shout, and Emma places the voice just as she comes to a stop in front of the cell holding David. He’s bent over on the floor by the door, his hand pressed to his chest and in visible pain. “Snow!”

 

“David,” Emma murmurs, and David’s wild eyes settle on her.

 

“Emma. Were you involved in this? Did you–“

 

Emma retrieves the keys and unlocks the door. “She played me.” She notices suddenly that she’s shaking, trapped between shock and fear and disbelief. She can’t seem to stop shaking. “She let me think Snow was down here so I’d do everything I could to get to her, and she did it so I wouldn’t be watching _her_.” She manages to get the door open and stumbles back, still unsteady on her feet.

 

David catches her, steadies her, the suspicion gone and replaced with understanding. “She used me as…” He spreads his hands, laughing helplessly. “Bait, I guess. I stopped Snow from killing her when under the influence of that potion and George’s men took me. And then _she_ did. Snow gave herself to her for my life. And I can feel that she…” He clasps his chest again and Emma leans closer to him, closes her eyes and struggles to forestall any tears. But none come; just dry eyes and miserable failure. “She hurt her.”

 

“You have to go,” Emma decides, pulling away from him. “She’s going to kill you. Whatever she said to Snow was a lie.” Regina is no Dark One. She keeps promises when she deems the promised worthy, and she will never deem the man who loves Snow White worthy of anything.

 

He nods, eyes pained but fierce. “I’ll find her. I will always find her.” He squeezes her hand in his and runs, and Emma hears the roar of the guards from the hall. She lifts her bow and follows after him, prepared to defend him until she hits that barrier…and then, silence.

 

She hears voices, Runs-With-Wolves’s soft cadence and David, and she pauses, listening to him depart. And only then does she return to the cell to sink down onto hard ground.

 

Snow is gone. David can have his blind faith, but Emma doesn’t share it. Regina has killed Snow, has expertly manipulated Emma to keep her out of the way and then executed her friend.

 

She’s so tired of Regina hurting the people she loves. Even the ones Regina had hated first. Even the ones who are just pawns in Regina’s game. _Like she is. Like she’s always been._

_I’m glad you’ve gotten that chance_ , Regina had said about David, and Emma had been touched and never thought that he’d be awaiting execution two weeks later.

 

She leans back against the bars of the cell, eyes dry and sightless and the thought of Snow foremost in her mind, of a ready smile and her hands adjusting to the feel of a bow and the woods and running; and she thinks of the child she’d danced with at a ball just under ten years ago, eyes bright with the innocence of youth.

 

She thinks of Snow in a little cave and Snow riding behind her and Snow so very, very confused about why her stepmother is so distant. Her eyes are so dry that they’re beginning to burn and she squeezes them shut, refuses to open them again, to see the world and know that Snow is no longer within it. To know that this is all over.

 

It must be over an hour before there are footsteps behind her, the clicking of heels and the whisper of dresses in a melody of _home_ she knows too well. Regina doesn’t speak, and Emma says, “I thought…I thought you’d changed. That hatred would fade from your heart with love.”

 

“I never made you that promise.” Regina is directly behind her, Emma sitting inside the cell and Regina standing on the other side of the bars. They don’t touch and Emma doesn’t look back at her. “You knew I was going to kill her.”

 

“Yeah.” She’d forgotten who she’d shared a bed with- so she _could_ share a bed with her- and now comes the excruciating, undeniable knowledge of it. “Did you know she still loved you?”

 

“I don’t want to talk about Snow White ever again,” Regina says, voice strained.

 

“Are you happy now?”

 

Regina doesn’t answer and Emma waits, waits, waits for words or for the sound of sharp footsteps departing and Regina returning to the outside world, but instead there’s only silence beyond the sound of the two of them inhaling and exhaling and inhaling and exhaling the stale dungeon air that surrounds them.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a fairly polarizing event near the end of this chapter, and I would normally be gleeful about y'all being furious at me for all that pain, but this is...delicate. So I am reassuring you now that this will not last long and the status quo will be what it should be soon enough. :) 
> 
> \+ special thanks to Maia (more than usual, anyway) for sitting through hours of my agonizing over said polarizing event and making sure that it would destroy everyone completely. Cheers!
> 
> We go through events from Lost Girl, Lady of the Lake, The Cricket Game, and the pilot in this one. And one more chapter left to Part II!

Snow is alive.

 

Emma gets the message by bird as she returns to camp the next day, settles in in her tent and makes no grand announcement to anyone but Little John that she won’t be leaving again. The scroll the bird drops for her is simple. _Sleeping curse, Charming woke me up with true love’s kiss. Engaged!_ Emma imagines for a moment Snow considering her words, surrendering to excitement and passing on the _real_ important details. She smiles and smiles and smiles until she reads on. _We’ll be rallying the kingdom at the borders. I’ve called Red too and if you wish to join me…_

The final bit is an invitation, a summons, a call for troops. Emma swallows and scribbles a response. _I’ll be there_.

 

She’s chosen a side, hasn’t she? She might as well go all out and do what she can to protect Snow.

 

* * *

She finds Snow minutes after Regina does, can hear the queen’s voice loud in the village square before she sees her. “If you declare me the rightful ruler of this land, I'll let you, the dwarves, and your so-called prince escape back to the sheep farm he once called home,” Regina is announcing as Emma steps behind a wagon to watch from among cowering villagers.

 

She goes on, detailing how much Snow will suffer- hunger in her eyes, murder on her mind, and Emma watches miserably- and Snow says, “And if I don’t?”

 

Regina’s eyes turn dark, murder rising back to the forefront. “Well, then someone will pay the price.”

 

The tug is instant, the pressure on Emma’s throat nearly suffocating her, and she chokes in panic as she shoots through the air to be displayed before Regina and Snow. Regina’s hand is outstretched as she strangles Emma, eyes blank but for expectant amusement at Snow. She catches Emma’s accusing, desperate gaze once but looks away swiftly to focus on Snow again.

 

The grip on her throat isn’t as tight as it could be, her breath still coming in tiny spurts, and she struggles with hands at her neck as Snow shouts, “ _Stop!_ ” and charges at Regina, sword in hand. Regina vanishes and Emma and Snow both drop to the ground.

 

David runs to Emma, kneels down beside her and helps her up. “Emma,” he breathes, and wraps her tightly in his arms. She closes her eyes and lets him, refusing to contemplate what Regina had done. She hadn’t meant to _kill_ Emma, that much she knows, but it feels like little comfort at all now. Regina hasn’t tried to hurt her in so long that this is…truly the end. _Henry_ , she thinks for what must be the thousandth time these past days. _What’s going to happen to Henry?_

 

“Is she okay?” Snow asks frantically, still splayed out on the ground. David glances at her and Emma nods, leaning her head against his shoulder.

 

“The next one won’t be,” Regina says, reappearing in her spot. She gives Emma a quick onceover and Emma grimaces at how it still manages to send shockwaves of emotion through her system. “You have until sundown tomorrow to give up the throne. And for every day that you defy me, I will kill one of your loyal subjects. Stop denying who you are, Snow White. You may have been a princess, but you will never be a queen.” She leans in, smirks at Snow’s horrified face, and disappears.

 

Snow says, “We need to convene.” The villagers scatter and flee the area and David releases Emma to set up a table. Emma stands, a hand still at her throat.

 

“I’m glad you’re here,” Snow murmurs, wrapping her in a hug.

 

“I’m glad you’re alive,” Emma whispers back. Snow is around her, real and solid and wide awake, unharmed by her experience with Regina. And Regina is offering her peace. “And it sounds like Regina is finally done.”

 

“Done?” Snow repeats. “She wants the kingdom.”

 

“Would that be so terrible?” Emma persists, and flushes when Snow stares at her, suddenly self-conscious. “I mean, she promised you peace in exile. Isn’t that all you’ve wanted anyway?”

 

“On my terms. Not on Regina’s! Who knows what this trap might be?”

 

“She wants you to go home. To David’s home.” Emma hesitates. “I think…there was a time when Regina would have given all she had to run off to safety with Daniel on some farm somewhere.” Maybe this is it. Maybe Regina really has tired of what Snow’s destruction has done to them all, and this is her offer.

 

But Snow whirls on her, eyes flashing with righteous affront. “So…what? Regina is just the victim in this? She’s nobly offering me her own happy ending and I’m supposed to give up on the people because of it? Are you even here to help, or did Regina send you to persuade me?” she demands, and Emma takes a startled step back.

 

She’s tired. She’s spent days running, toward Snow and away from Regina and dwelling on the fact that she’s removing herself from someone she loves- someone who will only cause pain to everyone else she cares about. She’s barely slept and she’d thought Snow was dead and she misses Henry more than anything, is terrified that she’ll try to reach him later and will be locked out instead. She’s worn out and exhausted and she’s horrified when tears spring to her eyes.

 

“Oh, Emma,” Snow says, reaching for her, and Emma takes a step back. “I’m sorry. I’m just…frustrated. I’m so sick of fighting.” She tries for a smile, the anger fading. “I know what it must have cost you to join us today.”

 

“You’re under a lot of pressure,” Emma allows, tamping down the conflict and grief until the tears stop welling up. She isn’t the touchy-feely type, and she suspects that Snow will take advantage of her crying to smother her. “I’ll meet up with you back here later, okay? Just…think about it. Can you stop Regina from killing villagers?”

 

“I suppose not,” Snow says, her eyes troubled, and Emma mounts Beetle and rides aimlessly, past the Merry Men’s camp in the forest and through Regina’s kingdom. Well. Maybe it isn’t quite as aimless as she’d like.

 

_Henry,_ she thinks again, filled with such sharp longing that she trembles with it; holds tight to her saddle and looks up, searching for the balcony she’s never scaled before, just around the corner from Regina’s.

 

She throws her rope, anchors it, and climbs her way up gingerly, half expecting a wall of flames to envelop the balcony the moment she touches it and to be shut out of Henry’s life forever. Instead, she makes it onto the balcony with no problem and tiptoes into Henry’s room.

 

Regina is seated in the rocking chair, eyes closed and Henry’s little fingers seized onto her nightgown as she presses him to her heart. She’s singing, low and melodic; and with no anger in her voice or eyes, she’s beautiful, tangible and dear and gentle. Emma takes another step forward, stricken with unquenchable love, and Regina stops singing to say dryly, “You aren’t still worked up over my demonstration, are you?”

 

“It was an hour ago. You tried to strangle me,” Emma points out. Her voice is too shaky to be biting and she wants to reach for Henry, to have him and be comforted, at least, by the one person who matters most cradled in her arms. But she waits. Regina opens her eyes and they’re still very, very cold.

 

“Well, you did betray me and ally with my mortal enemy,” Regina retorts, and Emma furrows her brow at her disbelievingly. Of _course_ she’s decided to frame it like _that_. “Is she considering the offer? I thought it generous. There was a time when I would have wept to have what I offer her now.” Regina’s voice is careful, conversational and casual, even though the irises of her eyes are like pools of dangerous bronze around sharp black pupils.

 

“I told her that,” Emma murmurs, and Regina tilts her head, something less hostile passing through her gaze. “But…I don’t think I should be talking to you about Snow’s plans now. We _are_ at war until the decision is made.” She says _we_ without thinking and Regina’s face darkens. Emma feels her own mouth pressing together stubbornly and her fists clenching, and she doesn’t take back her statement.

 

“Very well,” Regina says curtly. “You still have that bracelet that gets you through my barriers, yes?” Emma nods. “You will only come up this balcony, enter the nursery. I will have a guard outside Henry’s room. He will be instructed to arrest you if you leave it. Understood?”

 

“Right. Yeah.” She can’t stop staring at Henry, still resting against Regina but squirming around at the sound of her voice, and Regina sighs, stands and gestures for Emma to take a seat.

 

She can feel Henry’s heartbeat against her skin moments later, can feel him suckling peacefully at her breast and his hand wrapped around her index finger and she closes her eyes, relieved at last. She doesn’t comment when Regina reaches over to move her hair behind her shoulder and brushes a finger along her neck where she’d been nearly strangled earlier.

 

The final bits of soreness disappear. Moments later, so does Regina.

 

* * *

Snow decides to fight to protect the people of her kingdom. Later, Emma tries pointing out that the kingdom is quiet when Regina isn’t hunting Snow and is met with gazes both pitying and distrustful.

 

“No offense,” David says, “But you are biased in this regard.” There’s a rumble of agreement from the dwarves and Emma glares at her brother, stung.

 

“It’s just that we don’t know what will set her off,” Red says hastily from the other side of the table. “She might be good at the…organizational aspects…of running a kingdom, but she doesn’t value her subjects’ lives. And who’s to say another threat won’t have her massacring villages again?”

 

Emma sits in sullen silence, watching the Blue Fairy fly over to Snow to whisper something in her ear- about her, judging by the distaste on her face when she glances Emma’s way, and ostensibly uncomplimentary. Snow smiles politely and turns back to the table.

                                                  

Snow is surrounded by allies at her war table. They’ve picked up newcomers along the way: an old flame of Granny’s named Gepetto who can build marvels out of wood; a talking cricket who accompanies him and provides counsel; a number of men who’ve sworn fealty to Snow in recovering her kingdom; and fairies. Too many fairies. Emma distrusts fairies and this one in particular more than most, maybe because the Blue Fairy doesn’t trust her, either. _The queen’s castoff_ , she’d called her the first time they’d met. _Darkness hangs around her like a shroud._

 

People flock in, and soon war plans are being drawn up. David, still a shepherd at his core, has a knack for putting the troops together most effectively. Snow is good with strategy and the two of them with their small army have rallied together inspired villagers willing to overthrow the troops in their vicinity.

 

The fight goes on, and on, and on, and until nearly a year has passed. Regina signs a treaty with King George and Snow makes alliances with Abigail and Midas, with King Michael and King Stefan and several others willing to risk Regina’s wrath for the ultimate promise of a less powerful ruler. Emma listens to their heated curses and mockery of her son’s other mother and refuses to care, refuses to be angry, refuses to allow this to make her sympathize with Regina and her years of effort poured into gaining respect as a lone queen.

 

Emma and the Merry Men take advantage of the conflict to allow the riches to come to them, stealing liberally from foreigners who arrive to fight battles for either side and dropping in on poorer villages in George’s kingdom and making sure that they aren’t suffering too much from the war. They don’t officially join either side, at Emma’s urging for neutrality, though she catches some of the men fighting with Snow in battle anyway.

 

Regina helms her army and rides at the front, more often than not, flanked by loyal soldiers who’d trained with Emma. Emma doesn’t get involved in those battles. Snow’s armies are set up in four companies, all driving inward from the borders of the kingdom to the castle, and they win and win with the overwhelming support they’ve been given.

 

Regina spends more and more time in the nursery and it’s a struggle for both of them to be in the room at the same time. Regina, for all her setbacks in hunting Snow, hasn’t _lost_ before, and the odds of it happening are becoming more and more likely. And with that knowledge, something reckless has reappeared in Regina’s eyes, flirting with madness and hatred, and it doesn’t even clear fully when Henry is around.

 

And Henry is _around_ , sweet Henry who grows from a tiny baby during the war to sitting up and smiling and clutching onto his mothers as though he knows that they belong first to him. Emma misses the first time he stands but she’s there when he first says _ma-ma-ma_ and means both of them in the room, his mamas who love him despite everything. Henry loves to hit the floor with his rattle and make quacking sounds with his cheeks and chases Regina at a rapid crawl out of the room each time she leaves it.

 

Henry is the light of Emma’s life, and she thinks that even this may end badly. This castle is going to be under siege very, very soon. “Why don’t I take him?” she ventures once. “There’s a…safe place in the woods. I can keep him there.” Jasmine has had her baby, a little boy named Aziz, and the cabin is guarded from strangers and magic both.

 

Regina glares at her so fiercely that Emma flinches. “Henry is going _nowhere_. My castle will not fall.”

 

And there’s no more argument about it. Emma has to trust Regina on Henry, even if she trusts nothing else about her anymore. Still, though, she watches Regina with building uneasiness.

 

Snow and David don’t know that she still returns to Regina’s castle, not until she’s spotted scaling the wall and they call her into the war room with somber faces. The Blue Fairy flutters around behind them, her tiny face accusing.

 

“I know there’s…a lot going on,” Snow says, her eyes bare and the discomfort clear. “And you have other priorities than we do. Your Merry Men ransacked a shipment meant to feed the fourth company just yesterday.”

 

“It will be distributed to people in some of the war-torn villages,” Emma says defensively. Snow looks only mildly appeased.

 

David picks up the conversation. “It isn’t just that. Emma, are you still seeing Regina?” There’s a little judgment in his voice, on Snow’s face, and Emma scowls at both of them. “We need to know that you’ve cut off ties with her. You know too much about our strategy.”

 

“We don’t talk about the war,” Emma snaps. Maybe it’s the Blue Fairy hovering- fairies, fairies, so quick to back the children they choose to be worthy while ignoring the rest- or Snow and David seated at one end of the table as though she’s a soldier receiving a reprimand, but she’s feeling attacked right now. “We just…have a common interest.”

 

“Murder?” asks the Blue Fairy with a tight smile.

 

“No.” She leaves it at that, turns on her heel and exits the tent, and storms back to Beetle to ride back to camp.

 

She isn’t allowed at tactical meetings after that and some of the higher-ups watch her with suspicion, but she doesn’t care. She isn’t here to make friends, she’s here because it’s the right thing to do and Regina is the villain of the piece.

 

But still, when she looks for comfort at the end of a particularly trying day, it isn’t to Snow or David or the Merry Men that she rides. It’s to her little boy, who’s standing unsteadily while Regina is cross-legged on the floor, supporting him with a careful grip. It’s to the nights where Regina sings and Emma stretches across the floor because Henry won’t stop fussing until he’s lying against her and listening to Regina’s voice, and they both fall asleep until long after sunrise. It’s to the few times Regina permits her to leave the nursery and she bathes Henry under Regina’s strict supervision.

 

They’re soaking wet by the end of one such occasion, Regina’s silky dress plastered to her and Emma’s hair a tangled mess as she laughs and Henry is grinning up at both of them smugly, less water in the tub than all over them and Regina staring at Emma with something like regret on her face.

 

Emma shifts uncomfortably, heart cracking under the pressure, and Henry says loudly, “Mama! Mamama!” and holds out chubby arms for Regina.

 

She jolts and lifts him, wraps a blanket around him and kisses the top of his head and says in a cool voice, “You may go now.”

 

Henry says inquiringly, “Mama?” as though he senses something hostile in the air, and Emma flees from the castle and spends the night riding in a vain attempt to push regretful eyes from her mind.

 

* * *

She gets a message from Snow one morning as she’s riding out to a raid, a scrawled, _Come at once!!_ _Lake Nostos!!_ Snow has a tendency of making everything sound urgent these days, everything dire, _We have to take this town or Regina’s forces will overwhelm us and we’ll lose everything_ , _we have to listen to the Blue Fairy or we’ll fall to darkness_ , and it’s very tiresome.

 

Still, though, Emma rides to Lake Nostos, ready to fight for her. If Snow’s in danger, if David needs backup, if…

 

…they’re getting married…

 

Emma stops, drops off Beetle and blinks at the greenery and the little arch and is that Lancelot holding the ceremonial cup? Has she been called here for a wedding?

 

And then she sees the stretcher set on a wagon, the wounded older woman lying across it, and she understands at last.

 

She dismounts from Beetle and steps toward the woman, full of trepidation, and takes her hand, her eyes already stinging. She doesn’t dare speak, doesn’t know what she _can_ say. She’s practiced speeches over the years, full of self-pity and recriminations and blame, but today the words fail her.

 

The woman tears her eyes away from Snow and David slowly, with much pain, and stares at her with near-sightless eyes. Something flickers within them and a shiver runs through the woman’s whole body, seizing her up like she’s already a corpse, and Emma wonders if it’s too late.

 

But then she hears the rasp, hoarse yet wondering. “Emma?” her birth mother manages, and then she loses her voice, mouths out words that have no sound, and her eyes close for good.

 

She lowers her head to the woman’s chest, suddenly overcome with dreams of what might have been, and she hears David approaching, hears the whispered, “Goodbye, Mother,” as he sinks down against her other side. She can’t bear resentment toward this woman right now. She doesn’t know what David’s mother had seen when she’d looked at her, if she’d thought it had only been a death dream or if she’d been waiting to meet her for all these years, and she shivers like she’s wracked with sobs as she thinks again of voiceless words meant for her.

 

“I thought you’d regret it if you never met her,” Snow says softly, and Emma wants to be angry about this being thrust onto her but instead she only feels empty.

 

She rides to the castle when she leaves them, curls up on the nursery bed with Henry chewing on her hair and wishes with all her might that Regina would arrive in the nursery tonight. Instead she hears shouts and the sound of metal clashing and sees fire rising in the distance as she cries.

 

* * *

George’s kingdom falls completely the next day, and by evening David is setting up a trap outside of Regina’s castle, Snow running ahead as bait and some of their best knights dressed up as Regina’s. “Can she be trusted?” the Blue Fairy asks loudly, eyes on Emma. “So close to the queen’s capture? This is delicate business.”

 

“She’ll be fine,” David says, and his eyes are bright with adrenaline, with the end of this war so close. She’d asked him once, tentative and all too aware of how she’s treated by the rest of the war council, if he didn’t remember how Regina hadn’t been a nightmarish villain all the time. _I remember nothing but what she did to Snow,_ he’d said, and had spoken again of her murder with fierce desire.

 

“She’s already refused to give us the layout of the queen’s troops,” the Blue Fairy points out.

 

“I don’t _know_ them,” Emma says tiredly. “I don’t come here to assess Regina’s army.”

 

“Why do you come?” the fairy demands. “You still haven’t revealed that vital detail, have you?” There’s something in her eyes that Emma doesn’t trust, something that seems almost as though the fairy _knows_ , as though she’s playing a game beyond all of theirs and has all the pieces moving without noticing that someone is pushing them.

 

Emma doesn’t answer, just waits in the bushes, and they fall silent as they hear Snow’s scheduled trip into their clearing. Regina follows, voice cold and deadly and mocking, and Snow talks quickly, offers her parlay to negotiate her surrender. Emma squeezes David’s wrist with such force that he has to pry her fingers off of him. Regina _has_ to do this. She has to suddenly remember how to surrender for the first time in her life and she’ll be safe, protected, far from the kingdom but still alive. Regina has to accept Snow’s offer or she’ll be on the execution block in no time.

 

Regina will never accept the offer, Emma knows, and mourns her already for it.

 

Regina moves toward Snow and Snow shouts “Now!” and the Blue Fairy hurls fairy dust at Regina. She’s trapped in place, left in silent fury as David steps out to inform her that her reign of evil is over. Regina’s been captured.

 

Emma follows David into the clearing and fury flits across Regina’s face, fury and betrayal and disbelief that Emma would flaunt her allegiance so shamelessly at her. Emma says nothing and Regina stares and stares and stares until she says, the words coming to her with dawning understanding, “You’re going to take the castle.”

 

“Yes,” Emma says gently, and Regina breathes, closes her eyes like a load has been relieved from her shoulders, and says, “All right, then.”

 

She’s taken by the army and the Blue Fairy, dragged off to George’s- now David’s- castle as a few select knights come with them to march into the castle, to announce to the queen’s knights, “Queen Regina has been captured! You can join us or be vanquished as well.” They’d decided at Snow’s urging to punish Regina’s right-hand men who surrender only minimally, to consider them coerced and banish them for their atrocities instead of executing them. Only Regina will suffer for her crimes.

 

Snow is beaming as knights join her, swear her fealty, and several have the grace to look sheepish about it when Emma watches them silently. David climbs up the stairs and Emma follows at his heels, Snow trailing behind them, as he moves from room to room.

 

Henry Sr. is nowhere to be seen, and Emma feels her breath quicken as they climb up another set of stairs, closer to the queen’s quarters. “Who knows what she’s been up to there?” David says grimly, and he throws open her doors.

 

“Wait!” Emma cries, but there’s a barrage of arrows, a half dozen knights in Regina’s quarters, and they put down their bows to draw their swords just as she comes into view. “Wait,” she says again, and the lead knight hesitates.

 

“Lady Swan,” he begins, eyes flickering to David and Snow behind her. “We have our orders.”

 

“Regina is gone,” she informs him. “She’s been taken to George’s castle to await judgment. It’s over.”

 

“But…” He holds his sword tight, angles his head to point to where Henry Sr. is framed in the doorway of the nursery and Thea is just behind him.

 

Emma’s stomach clenches. “You may all go,” she says, and they listen to her like they’ve never listened before, step to attention and walk out as though Regina had given them that leeway. _Do what Emma says if Snow ever reaches the castle._ Snow and David are standing back so they can leave, bewildered, and Emma glares significantly at Henry Sr. until he walks out behind them. He touches Snow’s shoulder as he goes and she smiles up at him but doesn’t say a word to David, allowing Regina’s father to depart.

 

David starts forward again, eyes on a still unmoving Thea. She glares back at him, defiant, and Emma waits silently in the doorway. “What are you hiding?” David murmurs, stepping into the nursery, and Emma can hear the curse where she stands. “Snow! Snow, Regina’s kidnapped a child!”

 

Snow follows him in, eyes wide, and Emma trails after them both, catching Thea’s eye and nodding.

 

Henry’s supposed to be asleep now, but he’s beginning to stir, roused by the shouting from outside and David’s exclamation. He opens his eyes and Snow lets out a squeak of startled surprise. “Where did he come from?”

 

“What did she need him for?” David wonders.

 

And Henry looks at Emma and smiles, his two little front teeth glowing in the lamplight, and says as he reaches for her, “Mama?”

 

She swoops forward, past an openmouthed David and Snow and a smug Thea, gathers Henry into her arms and sits down in the rocking chair with him. “It’s late, baby boy,” she murmurs into his ear. “Time to sleep.”

 

He closes his eyes and she rocks him back and forth, refusing to look at either of her allies as they stare at her. And for the first time in a long time, they’re both speechless.

 

* * *

Jasmine doesn’t even ask. She has more bedding brought in for Thea and Henry the moment Emma arrives in camp with a little boy in a carrier on her back. The Merry Men are quickly charmed by Henry and he tugs at beards, steals morsels from their hands, and crawls after rabbits on the mossy ground that Emma allows him on.

 

The kingdoms are consolidating in the days that follow, the villages closest to Regina all but destroyed by firebombs and destruction from both sides, and Snow’s realm now extends to be the largest in the Enchanted Forest. Regina remains in a prison belowground, and Emma hasn’t seen her once as the debate over her fate continues.

 

“She must miss Henry,” Thea murmurs one evening. She’s quiet most of the time, keeps to herself or to Aziz’s bodyguard Zumurrud, but when she is around she’s boldly protective of Regina. Emma knows that her family had been well taken care of under Regina’s reign out of gratitude for a wet nurse who remains Henry’s most constant caretaker, and Thea has seen more of Regina’s love than anyone else. “If she’s to be executed–“

 

“She will see him first,” Emma decides, and rides out the next morning.

 

They’re running out of time, the Blue Fairy’s magic keeping her powerless for only a few days more, and she isn’t surprised when Snow pulls her over to tell her that the decision has been made. “She’s to be executed at midday,” she murmurs, and Emma reels with news she should have been expecting. _Regina_. Her heart clenches like it’s about to implode and she gapes at Snow as Snow adds hastily, “I was just about to send for you.”

 

There’s a catch in her voice and Emma isn’t certain if she’s lying or not. She has no mind to contemplate that now. “I want to see her.”

 

“With the baby?” Snow says dubiously. “Emma, I know you love her, but don’t you think that’s taking a few too many risks?” She leans forward, lowering her voice. “She’s unstable. She has no magic and she’s still tried to kill everyone who’s set foot near her cell. You can’t bring a baby to her.”

 

Emma’s jaw tightens with familiar stubbornness, the old argument back again. She’s trying to do the right thing, to keep Henry safe and fight for Snow and give Regina this one last grace. She’s being torn apart on all sides and she’s so, so tired of watching pain win out over love. “You can come. Watch from the shadows. You might learn something.”

 

She clears out the guards as she enters the upper dungeons, walks through the halls to a place she’d only been in once before. George’s prison hasn’t changed. Regina had been the one to rescue her then, and today she can offer only solace before the end.

 

Regina is standing by the window, watching the preparations for her own execution, and Henry whimpers, “Dark,” and she jumps.

 

“Henry?” she asks in the dimness, her throat sounding blocked, as though the words have to force their way through bitterness to emerge. “Emma?”

 

“We’re here.” She unlocks the cell door and enters the room. Regina is standing in front of her, eyes devoid of makeup and hair tied back into a simple ponytail. She looks more like her teenage self than she ever has before, and Emma chokes back a sob. “Henry, Mama’s here.”

 

“Mama!” He nearly springs out of her arms and into Regina’s and Regina laughs in a sob, too, kisses his cheeks and forehead and hair as she shakes violently around him.

 

“Henry. My love, my sweet little prince.” Emma guides her to the bare bed in the corner of the room, sits her down so she can gaze at Henry in wonder and cry openly, tears sliding down her face to land in Henry’s hair. “I’ve been so worried.”

 

“Mama,” Henry repeats, burying his face in her prisoner’s gown. Emma stands and watches them, feeling lonelier in this moment than she has over a year of Snow’s army watching her with distrust. This is _theirs_ , Regina and Henry’s, desperate need from both of them and Emma craving them both.

 

Regina kisses him, whispers songs to him and asks him about the days she’d missed and listens to his monosyllabic answers like they’re a prayer. She doesn’t look up for long minutes, caught up in ever-present love for Henry, and the madness is kept at bay when she watches him.

 

When she does look up, it’s to reach a hand to Emma, and Emma holds it firmly. “I’m going to take care of him,” she promises. “After…”

 

“My execution.” The madness isn’t kept at bay when she looks at Emma, and she’s terrifyingly unbalanced when she meets Emma’s eyes. Emma almost takes a step back. “Small comfort, I suppose.”

 

“Snow still loves you,” Emma says urgently, stepping forward instead. It’s all beginning to feel more real now, once she can see the execution being prepared down below and Regina is before her, and she’s desperate again. “Snow will fight for you if you give her a reason. If she sees that you’re willing to change, that you’ll choose peace over vengeance…Regina, I don’t want it to end like this.” She kisses her, presses her lips to Regina’s upturned face and feels her return with her own. “Please, just…don’t be a prideful ass for just a minute.” She laughs and cries at once and Regina strokes her hair, smoothes it back like she had after she’d tried to strangle her that day over a year ago.

 

“I will not surrender,” Regina coos to Henry, turning away from Emma.

 

Emma nearly slaps her, has a palm out and up in instinctive frustration. “Why do you have to be like this?” Regina ignores her, tickles under Henry’s chin and kisses his belly as he giggles.

 

Emma kneels down beside the bed, voice pleading. “We talked so many times about running away and I know I was never enough to change your mind, but Henry is. Henry can be ours in exile and I swear, we’ll never come back, we’ll never have to be anything but his mothers. You can leave this life behind, Regina.”

 

“I can never leave any of this behind,” Regina says darkly, and she holds Henry to her as Emma falls into discouraged silence.

 

She says finally, “We’re never going to break out of this, are we? We just…we’ve fallen apart so many times.” By Regina’s decision, by her own, even by unexpected circumstances. They never seem to find permanence in whatever this is, and now it’s so close to over and Emma refuses to believe that transience is all they’re ever going to have.

 

“And yet then we’re back together again,” Regina whispers. “We’re bound to each other, Emma. There’s nothing else but us.” And it’s true, achingly true, like heartbreak and loss and the grim foreboding of the sun reaching higher in the sky.

 

And Regina says, “I’m sorry,” and maybe it’s about one of their many failed attempts at love or maybe it’s about her choosing vengeance over everything or maybe it’s just a apology for dying too soon. Maybe it’s only _I’m sorry_ for being the one Emma had fallen in love with.

 

“Yeah.” Emma says, and she doesn’t want to think about what she’s responding to.

 

* * *

She stands in the audience at Regina’s execution, Regina’s father beside her and Henry returned home to Thea. For a moment– _A past where I’ve caused pain, a past where I’ve inflicted misery_ – Emma’s heart leaps, and she truly believes for a moment that Regina will change.

 

And then Regina’s face twists into something ugly and dark and she snarls out, “I want you all to know what I feel. And that is…regret. Regret that I was not able to cause more pain. Inflict more misery!” She goes on, lists crimes with smugness and vicious anger, and Emma watches her, resignation settling in.

 

The firing squad aims and Emma watches in stark silence, unable to do anything but stare with dry eyes as Regina invites death. The firing squad fires and Henry Sr.’s face is bowed but Emma keeps watching, eyes fixed on Regina. The firing squad is done and Snow shouts, a moment too late, “Stop!”

 

It’s the Blue Fairy, of all people, who stops the arrows, and Regina is taken away in smirking unbalance. She’s untouchable now, unreachable, and Emma doesn’t know why she’s so relieved when Regina is already long gone.

 

* * *

And yet, here she is again, lurking in the darkness with David while Snow gives Regina one more chance. Always another chance, another way out, and David is getting antsy even with their victory. They’d made a deal with the Dark One, had managed a protection spell with Regina’s hair that will never allow her to harm Snow or David for as long as she’s alive in this world. Regina can’t hurt them anymore.

 

Emma wants to be relieved, but instead all she feels is ugly foreboding. She’d spoken to Snow after the cancelled execution, had sat with her and they’d both stared at each other with misery on their faces, and she knows how this has to go. She knows what options they no longer have. _I wish I’d never fallen in love with her_ , she’d confessed to Snow earlier. _I wish I could feel free today instead of even more bound._

Snow had said, _So do I_ , and they’d held each other tightly, two women who love a lost cause far too deeply.

 

Ahead of them now, Snow is opening the cell, making promises to Regina and setting her free- _I’m letting the woman who saved my life go_ , she says, and urges her to start over again with so much naiveté that Emma knows this will fail- and Regina turns on her, whirls around and seizes her dagger. “Did you really think this would protect you? Since I can’t use magic, I can think of no better way than to kill you with the blade you had meant for me.” She raises the blade and Emma has to hold onto David to keep him back, blood rushing to her ears and defeat in her heart. “Goodbye, Snow White.”

 

Regina plunges the dagger into Snow’s stomach and her face twists, barely contained and utterly unhinged, her breath dragging out like a long, twisted, “ _Yesssss_.”

 

“No,” Snow murmurs, shaking her head, and she looks truly sorrowful as Regina yanks the dagger out.

 

“That’s impossible.” But it isn’t, not with the protection spell, and David steps out to inform Regina of just that. Emma lurks in the background, this time no comfort to Regina at all, and Regina’s eyes barely flicker to her.

 

Dressed in someone else’s clothes with no excessive hair and face to hide behind, Regina is small in defeat, a tiny beast of fury and disbelief surrounded by guards a head taller than her. But she doesn’t look vulnerable even stripped of all she wields. She looks terrible and fearsome and gripped with madness, a cornered beast about to lash out, and Emma tells herself that she longs for Regina no longer.

 

“Regina, you are banished,” Snow is announcing. “Banished to live alone with your misery.” Regina is still staring at them as though she’s horrified at their insolence, horrified at how all she’s wanted has been stripped from her by the magic she’s only found power in before. Horrified that she could have ever been defeated.

 

They’re making parting remarks, even Snow having surrendered to deadly threats at Regina, and Snow and David storm off as the guards seize Regina’s arms. “Wait,” Emma says from the shadows.

 

Now Regina turns fully to eye her, and Emma sees hope gleaming in the furious murder in her gaze. “Henry,” she says. “You’ll have to accompany me and we’ll set him up and…” Her voice trails off as Emma shakes her head.

 

She gathers her strength for what she’s known has to come now, the explanation Regina will never accept. “Regina, Henry’s staying with me.”

 

“ _What_?”

 

“Look at you.” Emma’s voice is pleading and she steps forward, biting hard on her lip to keep calm. “You’ve lost your mind. You’ve let vengeance consume you. Henry isn’t safe around you anymore.”

 

Regina strains against the guards’ grips, her lip curling. “ _You’ve_ gone mad if you think I’d ever hurt him.”

 

“You mean that. I know you mean that,” Emma allows. She’d sat with Snow and talked about this, about this final betrayal to be inflicted- _on_ Regina, instead of by her, and Emma had never thought that they would reach this place. Maybe she should have expected it. “But what happens if Henry ever stands in your way? What happens if Henry is holding you back from this…obsession? I want to believe that you’d never hurt him, but you aren’t safe right now. You’d kill everyone he loves just to destroy Snow. And he can’t live like that.” She shivers. She’s lived like that for so long and she’s an adult who’d thrust herself into Regina’s life by choice. “He’s just a baby, Regina. He doesn’t deserve that.”

 

Regina laughs a high laugh, sharp and unexpected enough that the guards exchange uneasy looks. “Such noble goals, Lady Swan! Saving my son from me? You sound like a simpering, supercilious Snow White. Do you want to know what I think you really want?” She doesn’t wait for Emma to respond. “I think you want to get away from me. I think you want to ignore how much I’ve done for you– how much I overlooked to keep you with us, how much was forgiven because I _loved_ you–“

 

She laughs again, colder still, and wrenches her hands from the guards’ grips. “I think you think it’ll be easier if I’m gone and you don’t have to deal with the _complications_ your feelings bring. I think you think you can break Henry away from me and forget I exist, let me fade away to only a villain in your dreams. And do you know what I think most of all, my dear, selfish Lady Swan?”

 

Regina stalks forward, circles Emma, and Emma refuses to move until the guards move forward again to hold Regina. “I think you don’t even know it, but you’re just looking to _punish_ me. To keep Henry to yourself and hate me the way you never could manage because I’ve brought such upheaval into your life.”

 

Emma recoils. None of that is true. None of that _can_ be true, that this is about her and not Henry, that it’s some twisted way of ridding herself of Regina once and for all and that she’s only thinking of her own feelings. _No._

 

_Maybe_ , she acknowledges a moment later. _And yet…_ She says aloud, “Maybe that’s all true. Maybe you’re right. But that doesn’t mean that I’m wrong.” This might be about her but it’s also about Henry, about exposing him to a woman who only destroys everyone in her path and Emma’s only managed to whisk him out of danger at the very last minute.

 

In the end, the only right decision is to keep him away from Regina from now on. It’s cruel, it’s awful, it’s the wickedest thing Emma has ever done, but it’s _right_ , and that can’t be changed.

 

Regina sees the way her face settles and snarls, “You will _not_ keep my son from me!” and charges forward again. Magic returns to her with the explosiveness of her fury and she shoves aside guards and hurls magic at Emma, blow after blow until Emma falls back and then stands back up and punches Regina hard enough in the face that her lip turns purple and bloody. Regina reaches out and Emma’s suffocating again, but this time she can’t breathe through it, this time it’s so tight that she feels as though her head is exploding and blood vessels are rupturing behind her eyes and she can feel the darkness setting in as the world begins to fade.

 

There’s a shout and then Snow has returned, shoving Regina back as Regina’s magic fails on her, and she snaps, “Put her in the dungeon! You, summon the Blue Fairy!” Her hand is on Emma’s arm and she’s pulling her up, guiding her from the dungeons, and Emma can’t look back.

 

Behind them, Regina is roaring in agony though she’s barely been touched, grief and despair as strong as the hatred in her voice as she shouts after Emma, “I’ll destroy you! I’ll kill you! _I’ll kill you!_ ” and her voice echoes down the halls of the castle as Emma sobs and sobs and sobs through bloody eyes and hates Regina only slightly less than she hates herself.

 

* * *

“And do you, Snow White, promise to take this man to be your husband, and love him for all eternity?” the priest asks, and Henry, restless as ever at almost two, attempts to climb up onto Al’s shoulders where Aziz is perched with a far superior view. Emma tugs him down again with an apologetic murmur and sets him on her own shoulders.

 

“I do,” Snow says, the look on her face so joyful that Emma smiles. She smiles less often now, burdened more with guilt than any of the freedom that Regina had been so certain she’d been angling for. Henry is a handful and he still cries at night for a mother whose memory has faded, but the grief remains. Maybe Thea’s been telling him stories again at night, maybe he’s picked up on Emma’s own grief, but he still longs for someone he can’t possibly remember.

 

The kingdom is secure, Regina locked away in her castle, and even Rumplestiltskin has been brought to a specialized dungeon far below this very room. There is nothing left to fear, only peace and happily ever afters. And Emma had stolen the latter and has resigned herself to never know the former because of it.

 

“I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the priest says amidst applause, and Snow and David lean in for a kiss just as the doors are thrown open with a bang and gasps sound.

 

Emma turns, gripping Henry by the ankles, and Regina, dressed all in black and with a long trail behind her, as sensual and dangerous as Snow’s white dress is fluff and lightness, says, “Sorry I’m late.”

 

She walks down the aisle, throwing aside a set of guards who run at her, and Snow draws David’s sword at a coldly smirking Regina. There’s an exchange Emma can’t hear and she draws Henry down, gathers him to her and whispers, “Shush. Hush, kid, we need to be quiet now.” His face screws up and she tries promises of candy and treats and anything to keep them from Regina’s gaze.

 

When she finally has him silent in her arms, she looks back up to Regina, who’s speaking again, eyes on Snow. “My gift to you is this happy, happy day.” Regina begins to pace and Emma slides further back into the throng. “But tomorrow my real work begins. You’ve made your vows, now I make mine. Soon, everything you love– everything all of you love– will be taken from you forever.”  

 

She smiles with no humor in her eyes. “And out of your suffering will rise my victory. I shall destroy your happiness if it is the last thing I do.” The threat is made with cold fury and so much certainty that Emma trembles, the nightmare returned again.

 

Regina spins around with a swooping motion and stalks for the door, red gleaming like blood below the black of her dress, and Henry pops up again, so quickly that Emma can’t anticipate it, and calls out in the silence, “Mama?”

 

Regina turns, the mask gone and only what looks like fear remaining on her face, and she casts her eye around the room, seeking out Henry. David takes his chance and hurls his sword at Regina, and she disappears in a whirl of smoke, her eyes settling on Henry with pure longing for only an instant before she’s gone.

 

Henry asks again, his voice echoing in the eerie silence of the assembled guests, “Mama?”


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember how I said back in Chapter 1 that there'd be some slight changes to a certain thing in canon beyond just the obvious Emma insertion? So. Here it comes.
> 
> Flashbacks from the pilot and Queen of Hearts included in this chapter. Y'all know what's coming.

 “Tell us what you know,” Snow commands, but Emma can see her hand snake out to David’s where their cloaks touch in the dimness of the dungeon. Emma wraps her arms around herself instead and waits.

 

It’s been half a year since Regina’s announcement at the wedding. Henry is two and a half now, stumbling around in the woods and speaking more and more. Snow has been queen, David king, Emma an outlaw in the woods, and Regina is all but silent in her castle. She’s waiting, but what for they can only suspect.

 

Rumplestiltskin had been captured only weeks before by some quick-witted new princess whom Emma had probably robbed at some point, and Snow had insisted that they go to him for guidance on Regina. “He can’t be trusted,” Emma had warned her. Even in Jasmine’s protected cabin, she’s slept next to Henry most nights and kept her bow close. She’s wary of Regina but _Regina_ is wary of the Dark One, and that has Emma on edge.

 

“He’s helped us before. Whatever his reasons, he says he’s invested in my future,” Snow had insisted. “It’s worth a try.”

 

Now, though, she looks as though she’s reconsidering, Rumple’s dark cackle making her squeeze David’s hand tighter as the Dark One demands a price. And then she gathers her strength, stepping forward. “What do you want?”

 

Rumple’s eyes flicker down to her flat stomach and Snow presses her hands together in front of it, looking uncomfortable. Emma knows that she’d decided to hold off on children until she could be sure that Regina’s promise would go unfulfilled, and Rumple’s eyes gleam like he _knows_ something about it. “Nothing _you_ can give me,” he says. “She has no use for you yet, then.”

 

“She?” Snow asks, but Rumple is already moving on, scanning the darkness where they lurk.

 

“But you…Lady Swan, you have something of worth.”

 

This was a mistake. Emma shouldn’t have gone down here with them. She draws her bow and nocks an arrow onto it. “And what’s that?”

 

He twists his hands, waves one outward. “Oh…the name of your son’s father?” he suggests.

 

Emma’s eyes narrow. “Deal. Now tell us about Regina’s plans.”

 

He leans in close enough that his face is nearly out of the bars of his cage. “The queen has created a powerful curse,” he begins.

 

“Created,” Emma repeats dubiously. She’d been there for both exchanges, knows exactly which curse he’s talking about. Knows exactly who’d _given_ it to her. “Tell the truth.”

 

Rumple sneers. “Soon, you’ll all be in a prison. Just like me, only worse.” His voice lowers to something dark and menacing. “Your prison, all of our prisons, will be time. Time will stop, and we will be trapped someplace horrible- where everything we hold dear, everything we love, will be ripped from us while we suffer for all eternity.” He goes on, clearly enjoying his captive audience. “While the Queen celebrates, victorious at last. No more happy endings.”

 

Snow moves closer to the cage, face determined. “What can we do?”

 

Rumple shakes his head. “We? We can’t do anything. It’s the boy, the truest believer, who can find the savior.” And slowly, horrifyingly, his eyes move back to Emma. “Your boy,” he says. Emma’s jaw sets so violently that it cracks in the quiet room. “Little Henry is our only hope.”

 

“No.” She almost laughs. They’ve gone to the fucking Dark One, what else should she have expected? Henry will _not_ get involved in some war against Regina. She turns to exchange disbelieving stares with David and instead finds him gazing at her with building hope.

 

“Yes.” His eyes glitter with malicious excitement. “Get the child to safety. Get the child to safety and on his tenth birthday, the child will force the savior to show her hand and the final battle will begin.” He sounds positively gleeful about it, and Emma fires her arrow, lets it whistle just past his ear as he chortles.

 

“Emma,” Snow says warningly, and Rumple turns back to Emma, eyes suddenly sharp and too knowing already.

 

“My name, if you please, Lady Swan.”

 

“Some guy named Neal,” she says, and takes savage pleasure in how his face darkens measurably as she storms out of the room.

 

* * *

 

The Blue Fairy is fluttering around behind Emma, making disapproving noises as Emma shifts in her seat, and the rest of the room is fixed on her, too. Henry is safe on her lap and her bow is on the table and her fingers are running across it, not quite a threat but not quite _not_ one, either. “Absolutely not,” she says again.

 

Granny knits faster. Lancelot purses his lips. David sags. Snow says, “Emma, he’d be _spared_ the curse. He’ll be safer that way.”

 

“Gepetto will make a wardrobe from the enchanted tree,” the Blue Fairy agrees. “But there is only power enough for one in it. He will travel to wherever the curse takes us, but he will be immune its effects.”

 

“Wherever the curse takes us,” Emma repeats. “I am _not_ sticking my son in a box and hoping for the best.”

 

The Blue Fairy hovers close enough that Henry can reach for her, poking at her until she flies back from him. Emma smiles tightly. “Hope, Emma, is all we have now. You must have faith.”

 

“Faith in you? Why the hell would I have faith in you?” Emma demands, her eyes narrowed. “You’re telling me that I have to give up my son to…who knows what kind of life he’ll have? Kids like us don’t get fairy godmothers looking after them,” she says, settling Henry down on the floor and standing. “He used to have _someone_ …but now he just has me. And I won’t let him suffer because of your kingdom’s needs.”

 

Snow speaks again. “Then we will lose.” She looks pleadingly at Emma. “No more happy endings, that’s what Rumplestiltskin said. You would condemn us all to this life to keep Henry from uncertainty?”

 

“Damn right I will.” She softens her voice, reaching for Henry’s hand. “Henry, it’s time to go.”

 

He holds her hand obediently and waits until they’re out of the room to ask her, “Why do they want me to go in a tree?”

 

“Because a mean man told them to take you. Don’t worry about it.” She squeezes his hand and imagines Regina in the room with them, eyes flashing and fireball ready in her hand as she protects their son. And daringly, she says, “Your mama would never stand for it.”

 

He watches her solemnly, unblinking, before he speaks again. “You never talk about Mama.”

 

“Yeah.” She struggles at it more often than not, at pushing Regina from her mind and heart and focusing on her only as the threat she poses. It doesn’t work, and she’s more and more reticent, leaving Thea to keep Regina alive for Henry in stories.

 

She wants to believe that Regina will let all the anger and hatred ebb away, that she’ll become someone who doesn’t make Emma wary for all of them and Henry will be able to greet her someday with open arms. But instead, Regina’s cooking up new curses and hasn’t wavered for nearly a year since her almost-execution, and Emma fears that there will be no end to this. She doesn’t want to give Henry hope for Regina. She’s spent over a decade hoping for Regina and it’s never changed a damn thing.

 

“Okay, so you don’t want to have hope,” Snow says from behind them, pushing the doors to the hall closed behind her. She walks across the room, turning and doubling back to face Emma. “Fine. But Henry’s going to be affected by this curse. We’ll all be affected by this curse. And without him, we’ll never escape.”

 

“At least we’ll be together.” Snow wouldn’t understand. Emma’s spent her entire life alone, has never had family until Henry and Regina and her and David. Emma had been cast aside for the good of the rest of her family when she’d been a baby, and she’d never do that to her son. _Seven years_. Like hell. “Frozen in time doesn’t sound that bad when you’re frozen with the people you love, okay?”

 

Snow watches her, brow creasing. “Is this about Regina?”

 

“It’s about _Henry_ , Snow. It’s about me protecting my son instead of letting you turn him into a martyr.”

 

“He’s all we have,” Snow urges her. “He’s our only hope. I wish I didn’t have to ask you this, but what choice do we have? If it’s destined to be this way…the future won’t change, Emma.”

 

Henry clutches her hand even more tightly. “Ma, I don’t want to go.”

 

She crouches again, puts her hands on his shoulders and speaks slowly for more emphasis. “You’re not going anywhere. I will never let you leave me, okay? It’s me and you and no one is going to change that.” Henry nods, his stiff little shoulders relaxing, and Emma breathes, flashes to herself as a girl just a bit older than him being handed away in this very castle and flashes back to the present. _Never again. Never to him._

 

She rounds on Snow again. “What would you do if it was your kid you had to abandon? For the sake of the kingdom? Would you do it?”

 

Snow hesitates, and says without confidence, “I would do whatever had to be done. The Blue Fairy is right. We have to believe that he’ll come back to us.” 

 

 _He’ll come back to us_. It’s everything that happens before that that has her stubborn and terrified for him. He’s _two and a half_. She isn’t sending him off to suffer his way to heroics.

 

“You’re a fucking liar,” Emma snaps, lifting Henry up into her arms. “You wouldn’t. No mother would even consider this crap.” She grits her teeth, _done_ with this conversation and the idiocy of sending Henry away. “Goodbye, Snow.”

 

Snow’s lips close and her eyes are hard and unfriendly for the first time since Emma’s known her. “Don’t do this, Emma.”

 

She ignores her, marches from the hall and flees the castle at once.

 

* * *

 

They persist. For weeks after the Dark One’s announcement, Emma avoids the war council when possible, dodges Red’s gentle prodding when she visits the camp and changes the subject when David brings it up again and again. The Blue Fairy hovers around their cabin, looking speculatively at the door and windows and tapping to be let in, and Emma refuses to answer her call at all. She still comes to meetings when she’s summoned, but she doesn’t leave Henry alone anymore, wary that…

 

She doesn’t really think that anyone here would take matters into their own hands, does she? These are the good guys. She’s finally fully aligned with the people who’d been _right_ in the battle against Regina and now all she can think is _Regina would never accept this_. Regina would have set them on fire for even the idea of putting Henry at risk. And Emma doesn’t care if it’s selfish- how the hell is it selfish to refuse to send a two-year-old boy off to save their skin?- not when Henry is involved. Maybe it’s the right thing to do, but Emma’s not quite sold on their _right way_.

 

“We have to assassinate Regina,” Snow says abruptly from the other end of the table, further firming _that_ thought process.

 

Emma says, “ _What_?” before she looks around and sees the bulk of the room nodding in agreement. “What?” she repeats again, keeping her voice down.

 

“Well, if we can’t end the curse, we can stop it before it’s cast.” Snow, at least, looks unhappy about her decision. “I made a mistake by letting her live. She’s never going to stop coming after us.”

 

“We have no choice, Emma. If you won’t put Henry in that wardrobe, what else can we do? Any ideas?” David isn’t quite meeting her eye and Snow’s frown deepens further.

 

Emma throws up her hands. “I don’t know. You can find convenient enchanted trees in the woods but you can’t pick up some kind of curse stopper? Aren’t you some kind of all-powerful being?” she demands, twisting around to glare at the Blue Fairy. “You can’t stop a spell?”

 

The Blue Fairy flies away from her, settling daintily at Snow’s side. “We have laws governing our use of magic,” she says. “We can only do so much.”

 

David clears his throat. “Emma, I’m the last person who would condone this sort of assassination, normally. This isn’t something we’re proud of.”

 

And suddenly his avoiding her eyes and Snow’s discomfort make a horrifying kind of sense. “Oh gods. You aren’t just bringing this up, you’ve already set it into motion.” Emma gapes at them. One of the dwarves snickers. “Do I have to spend the rest of my life keeping you three from killing each other?”

 

She stands, studying their faces with narrowed eyes. “How long ago?”

 

“Emma–“

 

“ _How long_?”

 

Snow sags. “The assassin was to leave at sunset tonight.”

 

It’s an hour after sunset, and an assassin will be cautious. Emma can still intercept him.

 

She’s halfway to the door when Snow speaks again. “You didn’t object to her execution.”

 

The execution she hadn’t been informed of until hours before it had been scheduled. Emma’s beginning to sense a common thread here. “Yeah, well, I thought it was moot. That it was justice. But I’m figuring out that I don’t give a damn about what you people think is right.” _Right_ is seeing a big picture that will strip Emma of more people she loves, and Emma’s beginning to discover that she subscribes to a very different kind of justice.

 

Snow looks hurt, a determined scowl settling onto her face, and Emma sees the spoiled princess, _I felt like you chose Regina over me,_ merging with the queen who’s learning in her desperation how to be ruthless. “You know she’s not going to change. You took your son away from her because…I thought you’d given up on her, too.”

 

“Our son,” Emma corrects her unspoken implication, uncomfortable in this room with so many hostile eyes on her. “Mine and hers. And I took him away because she was…You were there.” She’d been hidden in the shadows and Emma had hoped desperately that she would see Regina as a _mother_ , as someone who would choose Henry and would be worth freeing. Instead… “She was willing to die to spite you than live for him.” She probably isn’t helping their case here.

 

The Blue Fairy is whispering something into Snow’s ear, but Snow’s eyes are still on Emma. She tries for a softer tone. “I don’t think she knows who she is without her anger. And maybe she’ll figure that out…” Emma still wonders if she might, if time and distance really are the answer, and she hates that she wonders it with a curse coming and Regina as persistent as ever. A loveless childhood of rejection has meant that her faith in people has always been easily broken, shattered and cast aside with betrayal. She doesn’t know what it is about Regina that makes her want to keep believing.

 

“But I don’t think it’s fair to Henry to make him her lifeline while she does. That’s all.” He shouldn’t suffer for her evil, shouldn’t live with her in a world where there’s only fury and hatred and a mother who puts that first. And Emma won’t use Henry as a tool to instigate Regina into redemption, either.

 

She pushes open the double doors to the room, and Snow calls after her, “She’s trying to kill us all!” And Emma has no answer to that beyond _I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care about any of it anymore,_ so she marches on.

 

“Emma,” David says, and there’s coolness in his tone that has her pause. She turns and he’s watching her with undisguised sorrow, and she knows with dread what’s about to happen. She’s been too often argumentative, too protective of Regina in front of their advisors, and her refusal to give Henry up still hangs over them all. There’s only so much they can tolerate even from her.

 

It comes as no surprise when Snow says gently, “We think it’s best if you don’t come back here. We love you,” she adds at once. “We do. But…we need to know that you’re on our side in this room. And I don’t think you are.”

 

“I’m not on Regina’s side either,” Emma says, turning back away from them. She’s on Henry’s. Only Henry’s. And fuck everyone who stands in the way of his safety. In the way of his happiness, and his chance to have the possibility of the mother he deserves, someday.

 

She stalks from the room to the stables and urges Beetle toward Regina’s castle at a gallop.

 

* * *

 

Emma had expected the castle to be all but abandoned, the villages around it empty and only a few lone guards left to supervise the area. She hasn’t dared ride nearby in nearly a year, and she’s startled to discover bustling towns and a castle bright with lights even from a distance. Not everyone had hurried away from Regina, it seems, which will make the assassin’s job that much harder.

 

She can’t believe that Snow and David would be so _stupid_ as to think that an assassin could take down Regina. It would have to be a powerful magic user at the very least, or someone Regina would trust enough to let in. That, or they’ll all have another murder on their hands.

 

Emma rides by rote toward the nursery balcony, hit by a sudden wave of nostalgia as she gazes up at it. She isn’t fool enough to try to enter it or see Regina, but she _misses_ it, misses the days when she’d had a family she’d loved. She’d always known it would fall apart, but she regrets none of it now.

 

She squints at an oddly shaped structure on the balcony, vaguely familiar but still unusual, and her eyes widen as she places it. _Rappelling hook._

 

It’s a moonless night and she has to step away from the glare of lights in the castle to see the rope stretching down from it, a masked figure climbing nimbly up toward the nursery. She draws her bow at once, takes careful aim, and shoots the intruder in the back of the throat.

 

He drops to the ground in front of her with a grunt and Emma sees the blood spilling already with ferocious satisfaction, sees the assassin thrashing, not quite dead, and yanks off the mask.

 

“ _Thea_?” It’s Henry’s nanny bleeding out, squinting up at her with a scowl. _Someone Regina trusts_. No. Thea’s been one of Regina’s most loyal advocators. Thea’s family had been well taken care of by Regina.

 

Thea had been trained to fight to protect Henry by Regina and Emma both. She’s no expert like Aziz’s bodyguard, but she’s good enough to stick a knife in Regina’s back when Regina presents it to her.

 

“They said…they’d keep you busy,” Thea manages, coughing up what looks like new blood. “I said…I’d have an arrow in my chest…before or after…it was done.”

 

“Why would you…how could you…you were Regina’s staunchest supporter.” Emma kneels down next to her, struggles to stop the bleeding out of pure instinct.

 

“Yeah…with Henry.” Thea bats her away weakly, dark eyes glinting with amusement. “Are you…trying to kill me or save my life? I knew how this would end. I know she loves Henry.” She coughs again, coughs and coughs and coughs until flecks of blood are splattered all over Emma. The arrow hadn’t hit anything fatal, but Thea is bleeding out in front of her. “But I also…lived with her for a year…and wasn’t in love with her. I know…what she is.”

 

She wheezes in a few short breaths. “I do…what I…do…for my family’s safety. Save…Henry. Stop…the…curse. Emma,” she says, her eyes widening, and she’s choking again, but this time she doesn’t cough out blood, and her throat makes violent noises for a moment before she stops moving.

 

Emma kneels over her for another moment, retrieves her arrow and lays it beside her, and gently closes her eyes. She’d killed Thea to protect Regina, but Thea had also been a friend, her only in the woods after Jasmine had returned to her kingdom. Henry’s adored nanny.

 

A new wave of tired grief washes over her. Sometimes a curse where they’re all trapped in time and nothing more can change, no one more be lost…sometimes it doesn’t seem that bad.

 

She stands and hears a dark chuckle behind her. “Hello, Swan.”

 

“Regina.” She’s standing over a corpse with a rappelling rope beside her and she knows how it must look to Regina. “You’re in danger.”

 

“From you?” Regina laughs again and Emma is hurled at the castle wall, smashed into it with so much force that she’s dizzy with pain. “I don’t think so.” She slams into the wall again, Regina relentless, and Emma gasps a wordless protest and drops to the ground.

 

She can see Regina as a dark figure a few feet away, sneering down at her with not a hint of fondness or concern on her face. “I told you I’d kill you,” she snarls. “You won’t even have the luxury of a few more months to live.”

 

The curse. Regina’s purview, the reason why Snow is sending assassins after her, the reason why Emma’s afraid to leave Henry alone without Zumurrud or Little John anymore. Regina can change it _all_ , and Emma strains to say, “Henry. It’s about Henry.”

 

There’s a flash of light like a shock of lightning and Emma is enveloped in it, can feel it pulling at her skin and scorching it while she cries out in agony. “You don’t use him to manipulate me!” Regina roars over the crackling and Emma’s screams. “You don’t say his name!”

 

Her skin is on fire, the world is fading around her, and Emma can feel her body ripping itself apart from the force of the power slamming into her. Regina is laughing, a full-fledged evil cackle bordering on hysteria, and Emma goes limp, accepts the pain, surrenders. Regina is alive. Henry is alive. Whatever comes next, that’s all that matters. “ _Open your eyes!_ ” Regina is ordering her. “ _Fight me!_ ” She sounds desperate for it, for a battle to release all the fury she must have bottled up toward Emma. There’s no love in her voice or in the power that has Emma in its grasp.

 

Her body seizes up and she breathes out as the world turns black around her.

 

* * *

 

She’s surprised when her eyes open. It’s light outside, her body is screaming in agony and her head feels as though Beetle’s been slamming his hooves against it repeatedly, but she’s alive.

 

She sees a guard she recognizes kneeling over her. _Runs-With-Wolves._ The boy who’d become Regina’s knight and had saved Snow and David anyway. This may go any way now.

 

He says, “I’ve hitched your horse to a carriage. He knows the way home, yes?”

 

 _That_ way, then. She doesn’t ask him who he’s doing this for when he helps her into the carriage, if Regina doesn’t know or if she does or if she ordered it. She doesn’t even have the energy to thank him.

 

She lies on the floor of the carriage as Beetle rides back to camp, groaning in pain with every movement of the coach.

 

She’s been all but exiled from her brother’s kingdom. One of her only other friends had betrayed her and tried to kill Regina and been killed, and Regina had tried to kill Emma in return. All she has is Henry and her little band of thieves, struggling to endure in a world ticking down to a curse that will end them all.

 

She closes her eyes and pleads with magical forces that never, ever listen to someone like her.

 

* * *

 

Recovering from Regina’s attack takes months. She has broken legs and a shattered collarbone, a wealth of cracked ribs and bruised _everything_ , and burn scars that may never fade. Regina might not have intended to kill her (she still isn’t sure if she’s only making excuses again) but she’d been more than eager to leave an impression with Emma.

 

Her only solace is Henry, looking after her as best as a two-year-old can. He props up his toy bunny beside her and reads her stories from the pictures in his own, sleeps beside her as soon as she’s bandaged up enough not to be hurt by it and gives her kisses that leave him disappointed when they don’t immediately cure him. “Why won’t true love work?”

 

“True love can’t do everything, kid,” Emma murmurs. “Sometimes it can’t do anything at all.”

 

Without Thea, there’s only her to tell him about Regina, and she swallows any sorrowful resentment she might be feeling toward her (She’s generally stuck somewhere between _asshole_ and _I deserved this_ and at least she has Henry, at least she still has him safe beside her) and begins to tell him the stories he’s missed instead.

 

He’s wide-eyed at stories about crossing King George and giggles when Emma describes his other mother as a stubborn know-it-all. “You call me that too!”

 

“You–“ Emma pokes his nose. “Take after your mama far more than I would have ever planned.” She tells him about magic, makes it sound wondrous and beautiful instead of something to fear. She tells him about stealing from Regina and dancing with Regina and Regina building him a nursery in her castle and doesn’t tell him about a sad queen who’d only wanted to be free. She wears her cloak again for the first time since Regina's botched execution.

 

She _loves_ Regina, still misses her with each good time remembered, and she does actually begin to cry when she tells Henry about picnics on the castle grounds with Regina and the two of them together. Henry listens solemnly. “She’d be a great mom for you, Henry, I know it. Maybe someday…” She swallows and doesn’t finish the sentence.

 

* * *

 

Henry’s third birthday is less than a week away when she wakes up one night from Aziz making noise in the next room and sees Regina standing over Aziz’s old cradle, her back turned away from them as she stares down at it. Emma flinches before she remembers that magic won’t work in this cabin. “How did you get in here?” she whispers.

 

Regina turns, her fingers sinking down to clamp onto the cradle’s side, and she eyes Emma with nothing but hatred and disgust. It’s…familiar, and if Emma hadn’t been telling Henry the story of their heist at the Dark Castle just the night before, she wouldn’t have been able to place this moment. Instead, she remembers looking into a glowing orb and seeing the future in it, seeing a Regina who despised her and kissing the Regina beside her in a desperate attempt to hide from that hatred.

 

She flushes and Regina says coolly, “I eliminated the guards outside the cabin and walked inside. I’m here for Henry.”

 

Henry is still asleep in the crook of Emma’s arm and Emma draws him closer, reaching for the knife she keeps under the mattress. “No.”

 

Regina sneers at her, lip curling like Emma is only a gnat to swat away. “I’m not taking him with me, not when the curse is so close. I will take no risks.” There’s that old shadow in her eyes, and Emma is afraid for Henry Sr. “I want to see him.”

 

Emma sighs, sits up with a groan as her bones ache from it, and rouses Henry gently. “Henry, your mama is here.” She sneaks a glance at Regina and sees that she’s startled by the title, some of the hostility fading away.

 

“Mama?” Henry asks sleepily.

 

Regina crouches down by the bed, close enough that Emma recoils, and she leaves a sweet kiss on his brow. “Hello, Henry,” she whispers.

 

“I missed you,” he mumbles, eyes still only half open. In the morning, he’ll think this is a dream. “Where did you go?”

 

“I had to make a safe place for us, sweet prince. A place where we can be together and no one can ever take you from me again.” It’s strange, being on the outside of Regina’s love. It’s almost a visible thing, stretching out from Regina to Henry like a brilliant stream of pure affection, and Emma feels small and insignificant beyond it and strengthened by seeing it at the same time.

 

Henry is still Regina’s and Regina is still Henry’s and she blinks back tears, sighs with relief and shifts back a little further when Regina eyes her, confused again. Emma pulls her legs up and winces as they twinge. The doctor who’d looked at her had said that she’s healed by now, but she still has pains through both when she thinks of Regina.

 

Regina doesn’t look away. “You didn’t let him forget me,” she murmurs, her face twisting again as though she isn’t sure how to respond to that.

 

Emma shrugs. “I tried forgetting you. But that didn’t work, either. So I stopped.” She wipes her face clean of expression, refusing to give Regina anything.

 

Regina holds out a hand, touches her on the leg where she’d been crushed against the castle wall, and Emma’s afraid to move, afraid of Regina and what she can do- and what Emma might do around her. “It’ll all be different after the curse comes.” She says it like a promise and a threat all wrapped in one, and kisses Henry one last time on his forehead. “Sleep well, little one. I love you.”

 

She walks away and turns back at the door to the room for one moment, catches Emma’s eye and is uncertain, and Emma loves her and hates her and loves, loves, loves–

 

And she knows when the curse is coming.

 

She sits bolt upright, disturbing Henry in his sleep. _Not when the curse is so close._ Regina had come for a last meeting before the end, and Henry’s birthday is in under a week. And now that she’s a desperate mother, determined to punish Snow and take Henry back by force all at once, she’d pick only one day for her new beginning.

 

The curse will be cast on Henry’s birthday.

 

She hesitates for only a moment before she beckons a songbird down from its roost. “Find Snow White. Tell her the curse will come in four days.” Whatever their conflict, Snow and David are family, and their safety comes before her bitterness.

 

The bird flutters off and Emma settles back into bed, her healed leg still tingling below her at Regina’s touch.

 

* * *

 

Zumurrud leaves with Aziz the next morning. “The curse will not touch Agrabah,” she says with certainty. “We must make haste toward it.” She flashes a smile at Emma. “I’m sure we’ll find you again once it’s over.”

 

The cabin is silent that night, no noise from inside and only the sounds of Will and Alan-a-Dale arguing with each other from where they’re standing guard over it, and it comes as a surprise when the door opens later that night and unfamiliar footsteps sound in the kitchen.

 

Emma arms herself and creeps barefoot out of the room, silently cursing Will and Alan’s uselessness, and she fires once. The man sweeps away her arrow with some swift bladework, and he says, “It’s me!” before she can shoot again.

 

“Lancelot!” She sets down her bow, then hesitates, remembering her message to Snow. If they’ve decided to strong-arm Emma into handing over Henry now… “What are you doing here?”

 

“Snow sent me,” he says, sheathing his sword and lifting his hands in reassurance. “She was worried about someone coming to take Henry before the curse. The queen or…well. Some of our people have voiced some concerning plans.” He winces in the dark. “I’m here to watch over him until then.”

 

He’s her constant guardian for the next two days, carrying Henry on his shoulders as they go about their business. There isn’t much business to _go about_ , really, not when the world may be ending in just days and Emma’s only task before that is keeping Henry safe. The Merry Men travel from town to town, distributing food where they can and keeping quiet about the curse coming. There’s no need for hysteria.

 

On the day before Henry’s birthday, they have a little party for him, Emma and Lancelot and the Merry Men all gathered around in camp as menacing thunder rumbles over them in the clear sky. They sing old songs to Henry and Lancelot delights him with tales of Camelot and Emma holds him so close that he whines about it.

 

She goes to sleep when he does, still fully dressed and curled around him, holding him tight. When she wakes up, it’s dark out, there’s an odd faint glow to the room, and Henry is gone from her arms.

 

“Henry?” She slips her shoes back on and fumbles to light the lamp. “Henry!”

 

Lancelot is sitting at the kitchen table, eyes closed as though he’s asleep. She shakes him frantically and sees something glittering like magic around him. His eyes open and the magic disappears.

 

“Henry!” she shouts, running from the cabin. “HENRY! _HENRY!_ ”

 

There’s no sign of him beyond it, no footprints in the mud or a sleepy-eyed boy curled up next to Beetle. She doesn’t think to ride him out, doesn’t think beyond panic and terror and _the curse, the curse, “REGINA!_ ”

 

She runs in circles, around the cabin in wider and wider lines. “HENRY! REGINA!” and she can’t breathe, she can’t do anything but understand better than ever before what would have had Regina raging at her enough to kill her because Henry’s been _taken_ , Henry’s been taken and there’s a curse coming and it must have been Regina, she’d come before and she’d planted something and– “ ** _REGINA_**!”

 

There’s a chuckle as she emerges into another clearing and catches sight of them- two women standing together in the middle of the grass, one holding a staff and the other with a hook in place of one hand. The one with the staff is Regina’s mother.

 

“Milah, take care of that, would you?” Cora says, sounding bored, and Milah grins and stalks forward, raising her hook at Emma’s head.

 

Emma looks up and sees the sword. Above it, purple clouds flow over them. Over, around, as though a dome keeps them from rolling over this land, and the clouds reach the point in the dome directly above their heads. Milah brings her hook down onto Emma’s skull and the world stops moving.

 

**END PART II**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S NOT DONE. I mean, this fic is officially done, but it's part one of two! I've just been persuaded to split this into two, which suits both fics better, actually. The next one will probably be a bit easier on the angst mostly, promise! 
> 
> Anyway, I'm going to post a oneshot interlude between the two that will tell you what happened to Emma and Regina and Henry between now and the first chapter of the next fic (which will, incidentally, begin with the flashbacks of New York City Serenade). That should be out within a week or two, and the second fic will begin with Part III a week or two after that. (I've already set this up as part one of a series so you can subscribe to it if you're waiting for those updates.)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed! Much thanks to all of you for reading and especially to those of you who've commented or faved or left kudos. Y'all are my LIFELINE in this whole writing thing. And extra thanks to Maia and MM for always being there to help me iron out details and make this fic make sense. <333


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